Religion – Both sides of the camera

Two views of Liverpool

20191960 by Marie Donaldson

No Tram to Lime Street, with its celebrating sailors and a brief but warmly realistic love affair between one of them, Jack Hedley and the girl he picked up, Billie Whitelaw, drew some protests from local papers that the play gave a distorted view of Liverpool

But the other side of the picture was seen across the ITV Network when ABC’s Outside Broadcast Unit took TV cameras into Liverpool Cathedral for the first time to televise Holy Communion.

A recording of the service was later presented to the Cathedral

Teenage religion

20191960 by Marie Donaldson

Another pioneer ABC programme was The Sunday Break, established three years ago under the guidance of adviser Penry Jones, which presents the Christian religion to young viewers on the ITV Network every Sunday in terms of their own way of life, and which now has the largest audience of any religious programme

Television’s first visit to an approved school was made by ABC cameras when Mr C. A. Joyce above invited The Sunday Break to his famous Cotswold School, where boys work on the farm in surroundings as close as possible to normal home conditions

Student nurses from the Wellgarth Nursery Training College visited The Sunday Break to talk about their work with children of all races

The Little Sisters of the Assumption at Langley are trained nurses who use scooters to go about their work of tending the sick over a wide area around Manchester. The Sunday Break cameras went with them on their rounds one day

Traditional religious symbol of Christmas for children has always been the crèche. Among the special programmes presented each Christmas by The Sunday Break was the re-creation in three dimensions of The Adoration of the Magi. The model was presented to Coventry Cathedral

Youth and music

20191960 by Marie Donaldson

▲Modern music has always been an integral part of The Sunday Break. The current season of the programme featured the Sunday Break Songsters, a choral group formed by ABC from teenagers in the Midlands.

Janice Willett is one of the young directors who have worked on this programme.

Bob Fuest designed the set and also the riverboat below.

▼ In Light Entertainment, the Summer 1960 season ended with Steamboat Shuffle, a light-hearted musical programme for young people, networked across the country from a specially constructed riverboat moored on the Thames beside ABC’s London studios at Teddington Lock.

The director was Ben Churchill, who was also the first director of The Sunday Break

Christianity and television

20191960 by Marie Donaldson

In May 1959, ABC Television founded the world’s first Religious Training Scheme for Churchmen and women.

The Company felt that few Churchmen understood the workings of television and the exciting opportunities it offers them to influence people, so, with the co-operation of the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster and Church leaders, ABC now presents three Courses each year for the various denominations, on each of which twelve people are trained by the Company’s staff.

Above, the Bishop of Manchester inaugurates the first Course, flanked left to right by Mr Howard Thomas, managing director of ABC Television, Dr E. G. M. Fletcher, MP, deputy chairman of the Associated British Picture Corporation and the Rev L. G. Tyler, Anglican adviser to ABC Television.

ABC’s monthly Sunday evening religious programme Living Your Life presents many controversial aspects of religious thought.

‘The Challenge of Communication: Television’ is discussed above by a distinguished panel comprising left to right
Trevor Williams, Religious Correspondent of the Daily Herald
Canon Roy McKay, Head of Religious Programmes for the BBC,
Michae Redington, Producer of Religious Programmes for ATV,
John Bachman, Professor of Theology at the Union Seminary in New York

The Rt Rev Dr J. C. Heenan, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, is one of many notable churchmen of the North and Midlands who have appeared on Living Your Life