Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end.
A brief insight into the author, the founder of your groups:
I spend a lot of my time on Facebook now on the Groups I created and keeping them ticking over.
Recently members were asked if they thought the Groups were useful , as people joined, then their enthusiasm waned and members become inactive, which is not inspiring, quite depressing really. A bit like when I was player manager of amateur football and cricket teams, always count on 8, getting the other 3 was hard work, especially if it rained. Same with facebook - the same names pop up in notifications all the time, the ones that keep it ALL going, and at least there were 100% favourable answers to the litmus test inter action survey.
Many people retire and vegetate, drink themselves silly or potter in the garden, watch TV, that is not for me, though I do cherish my garden and plants. I am also a DIY man, but when the doing it yourself is done, I try on Facebook to do what I tried to do when I was at BBCTV.
Those were probably the happiest days of my life, looking back. As a Producer /Director, even Deputy Editor of Watchdog for 4 years, we achieved a lot. We righted wrongs, exposed cheats and infotained. IN fact I hold the record viewing figures for Watchdog, and now TV as it is, that achievement will never be surpassed. Of course Watchdog was a team effort, a mission not just a job. But I try now to do on Facebook as I did then, in a different media, but to a similar audience. Except I don’t travel the UK and the world anymore, I sit at my computer desk instead.
Watchdog was all about interaction with the viewers, telling their stories, how events affected them. As was then is now. The personal touch, making the viewer then and the readers now feel comfortable, at home and someone is on their side fighting for them. Not only Watchdog but all the 250 films I made across all terrestrial channels. Claims to fame, I told you about climate change 1st on TV, 30 years ago. We changed laws, handed over evidence to the authorities to bring the culprits to justice, it was not just TV.
Sadly most of the people I worked with are now dead, and with them went principles, courage and conviction. The TV world is a much different place today, I would say a pale shadow of what it was then.
My other career before TV was law enforcement for the Government catching con men, 600 court cases , lost 2 on points of law. It was because of my notoriety featured often in the press, that engineered the move as an investigator to TV. The Govt were fed up with me , jealous of me, and the feeling was mutual. They wanted an easy life. I wanted justice. So TV head hunted me, all I had to do was learn how to put pictures to what I found out. TV then was more powerful than taking people to court, even though I no longer had a warrant card, and a team of officers. Now I just had a film crew, and part of my job was to defend them when we turned up uninvited and unwanted.
So, why I am saying all this now, this morning?
Well most people put up and shut up. I wish I was back at TV now with the state Boris has made Britain. But then again they would have probably tried to gag me. So the reality is I have facebook and a website and twitter and I fight the evil cesspit of a government as a keyboard warrior, and encourage others to do the same. Spread the truth, expose the lies, incompetence and corruption.
Of course when I was an enforcement officer people were obliged to talk to me answer my questions. When I was a TV film maker, the good guys wanted to talk to me to get on the box, the bad guys tried to hide until we caught them on camera off guard. A lot of planning went into catching the guilty on camera.
On Facebook though I find a lot of figureheads want to be a big fish in their own small pond. They do not want to join forces, and I have no carrots to dangle in front of them, just morals and decency. The world has changed and not for the better. People doing their own thing is great, but allows the Corruption to continue. When it comes to groups, petitions, protests , voices, size matters.
I guess though, maybe it was always like that. It used to pay me a salary, now it pays my pension. I always led from the front, took a lot of hits, mostly in the back, but that was the only way I knew.
So that is the way it is.
The show must go on. Allan Sharpe does not know the meaning of the word surrender.
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