This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2013/may/03/ian-breach-guardian-humanist-service
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Remembering Ian Breach, the Humanist | Remembering Ian Breach, the Humanist |
| (7 days later) | |
| Alongside family and friends gathering to remember Ian Breach at Loweswater village hall this Saturday afternoon will be a sprinkling of people for whose nearest and dearest the onetime Guardian journalist conducted funeral ceremonies. | Alongside family and friends gathering to remember Ian Breach at Loweswater village hall this Saturday afternoon will be a sprinkling of people for whose nearest and dearest the onetime Guardian journalist conducted funeral ceremonies. |
| If this sounds like a doubly solemn engagement it's unlikely to prove the case. Ian, who died in January of lung cancer, was a brisk, practical fellow. Following a stellar career in print and TV journalism he trained as a Humanist celebrant and took more than 1,000 ceremonies between 1999 and 2012, deploying his considerable skills to piece together in-depth life stories of people in the North East and Cumbria. | If this sounds like a doubly solemn engagement it's unlikely to prove the case. Ian, who died in January of lung cancer, was a brisk, practical fellow. Following a stellar career in print and TV journalism he trained as a Humanist celebrant and took more than 1,000 ceremonies between 1999 and 2012, deploying his considerable skills to piece together in-depth life stories of people in the North East and Cumbria. |
| Ian's CV is the stuff of present-day journalists' dreams. He joined the features department of the Guardian in Cross Street, Manchester, aged 23 and without any A-levels. In fact, he'd done a marine engineering course at Bolton Tech before jumping ship aged 20 to join his girlfriend (soon-to-be wife) Jacky in London and make a living from technical writing. | Ian's CV is the stuff of present-day journalists' dreams. He joined the features department of the Guardian in Cross Street, Manchester, aged 23 and without any A-levels. In fact, he'd done a marine engineering course at Bolton Tech before jumping ship aged 20 to join his girlfriend (soon-to-be wife) Jacky in London and make a living from technical writing. |
| The northern features editor who hired him, Anthony Tucker, knew what he was doing. In short order Ian ran the letters page, was national jazz critic, then technology correspondent, before becoming the first motoring correspondent to quit the job because he realised it was environmental nonsense. | The northern features editor who hired him, Anthony Tucker, knew what he was doing. In short order Ian ran the letters page, was national jazz critic, then technology correspondent, before becoming the first motoring correspondent to quit the job because he realised it was environmental nonsense. |
| Having moved to Cumbria as a freelance in 1974, Ian was a natural to cover the 1977 Windscale inquiry for the Financial Times and New Scientist – reporting that he recycled in a 1978 Penguin Special Windscale Fallout: A Primer for the Age of Nuclear Controversy. | Having moved to Cumbria as a freelance in 1974, Ian was a natural to cover the 1977 Windscale inquiry for the Financial Times and New Scientist – reporting that he recycled in a 1978 Penguin Special Windscale Fallout: A Primer for the Age of Nuclear Controversy. |
| Never one to avoid controversy, Ian returned to Windscale and Sellafield in 1993 when, as BBC TV News environment correspondent, he explored the politics of THORP, the proposed thermal oxide reprocessing plant given the go-ahead in 1978, for a Panorama film called A Very British Folly. | Never one to avoid controversy, Ian returned to Windscale and Sellafield in 1993 when, as BBC TV News environment correspondent, he explored the politics of THORP, the proposed thermal oxide reprocessing plant given the go-ahead in 1978, for a Panorama film called A Very British Folly. |
| Taken to the Press Complaints Commission by British Nuclear Fuels, Ian won his case. His point that commissioning THORP would be a huge mistake has been proved correct. But Ian soon left the BBC and spent half a decade in the wilderness before he recast himself as a Humanist celebrant. | Taken to the Press Complaints Commission by British Nuclear Fuels, Ian won his case. His point that commissioning THORP would be a huge mistake has been proved correct. But Ian soon left the BBC and spent half a decade in the wilderness before he recast himself as a Humanist celebrant. |
| Not long before he died, Ian chose 12 of these lives (he'd filed them all away) as candidates for a short book we decided to compile. Eight of these feature in Singular People, which I edited and have introduced with a memoir about Ian's career. The book will be launched at Loweswater on 4 May. | Not long before he died, Ian chose 12 of these lives (he'd filed them all away) as candidates for a short book we decided to compile. Eight of these feature in Singular People, which I edited and have introduced with a memoir about Ian's career. The book will be launched at Loweswater on 4 May. |
| What struck me when I contacted the families of featured lives to obtain their permission and enlist their help was the warmth with which they recalled Ian's involvement at such a sensitive time. | What struck me when I contacted the families of featured lives to obtain their permission and enlist their help was the warmth with which they recalled Ian's involvement at such a sensitive time. |
| The lives include those of Mollie Pearson Abbott, an eminent Scottish educationalist who ended her days at Grange-over-Sands; Deborah Sue Godsey, an American nurse who came to live and work with her husband in Hexham; and Charles Bray – like Ian, from a Manchester working-class background – a sculptor who inspired the National Glass Centre at Sunderland while living near Carlisle. | The lives include those of Mollie Pearson Abbott, an eminent Scottish educationalist who ended her days at Grange-over-Sands; Deborah Sue Godsey, an American nurse who came to live and work with her husband in Hexham; and Charles Bray – like Ian, from a Manchester working-class background – a sculptor who inspired the National Glass Centre at Sunderland while living near Carlisle. |
| But perhaps the importance of Ian's "lives" is not so much in what people achieved as what they were to their family, their friends and the community. They show the North as a diverse place of strong customs, bound together by personality and principle. | But perhaps the importance of Ian's "lives" is not so much in what people achieved as what they were to their family, their friends and the community. They show the North as a diverse place of strong customs, bound together by personality and principle. |
| These days, funeral directors often offer a Humanist ceremony as an option. Partakers are not necessarily themselves Humanists – they might simply prefer a non-religious event. Ian's reputation has done the cause no harm. | These days, funeral directors often offer a Humanist ceremony as an option. Partakers are not necessarily themselves Humanists – they might simply prefer a non-religious event. Ian's reputation has done the cause no harm. |
| His memorial afternoon will be jazz-laden and humour-tinged, no doubt unearthing a few stories from his own remarkable life. As a taster, here's one little-known snippet: Ian the environmental campaigner had a penchant for midnight removal of tourist board road signs which, in his view, were ruining the North Pennine landscape. | His memorial afternoon will be jazz-laden and humour-tinged, no doubt unearthing a few stories from his own remarkable life. As a taster, here's one little-known snippet: Ian the environmental campaigner had a penchant for midnight removal of tourist board road signs which, in his view, were ruining the North Pennine landscape. |
| • Singular People: Ian Breach, Journalist, and his Humanist Life Stories, published by Baquis Press, £6, will be on sale at the New Bookshop, Cockermouth, and Cogito Books, Hexham, as well as online | • Singular People: Ian Breach, Journalist, and his Humanist Life Stories, published by Baquis Press, £6, will be on sale at the New Bookshop, Cockermouth, and Cogito Books, Hexham, as well as online |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. | |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Enter your email address to subscribe. |