Where are they now? Richard Bradley
People & Planet has been around for over 35 years in one form or another and to celebrate this, we will be profiling former members of P&P or Third World First groups to see what they've been up to since leaving the network.
Richard Bradley
When and where were you involved in People & Planet/Third World First?
I was in what was then Third World First a quarter of a century ago 1980-83.
Describe your most memorable People & Planet /Third World First experience.
It was the beginning of the Thatcher years and there seemed so much to campaign about. Apart from the peanut butter sandwiches at the weekly Friday meetings — the best memories are of the massive CND and anti-apartheid marches in the heart of London. The campaign for nuclear disarmament and the women’s campaign to remove US missiles from Greenham Common were huge and all consuming. London hasn’t seen marches as big until the march against the Iraq War.
What are you doing now? How did you get there?
I am one of the Managing Director’s of Lion Television, one of Britain’s leading factual production companies. We make all sorts of programmes and websites for British, American and other international broadcasters. My first job was in African and Caribbean publishing at Longman’s. Where I worked with authors like Ben Okri. Then I got into the BBC on a producers training scheme — where I stayed for over ten years making documentaries around the world. After a while I felt frustrated by being part of a big TV bureaucracy and wanted the freedom to pursue my own ideas for whoever would take them. So I left with two colleagues — and over the last ten years have had a wonderful time building up our own company and making I hope mind-broadening documentaries all over the world from the banks of the Ganges to Jerusalem, the Great Wall to Mecca, Cairo to Cape Town.
What impact has being involved with P&P/3W1 had on you?
Your world view is shaped hugely by your time as student — your lifelong friends, your values, the things you care about. At P&P/3W1 I met close friends from different backgrounds but who saw the world as I did, and who helped me shape my ideas, the ethics you live by. I also realised the power of campaigning — we all took part in successful boycotts of Barclays and Nestle’s. And it helped me realise the efforts of individuals can make a difference if you come together.
What inspired you to start campaigning?
I partly grew up in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — back in Britain I soon realised I lived in a very privileged corner of the world. If I am honest, it was my parents who are quiet campaigners. They taught me early on that there are many more important things in life than money and material prosperity. But probably the first campaign that I got actively involved in was ‘Peace by Peace’ — a campaign led by two very ordinary women, a Protestant and Catholic to bring peace in Northern Ireland.
What issue keeps you awake at night?
Clearly climate chaos is the great shadow in which we now live. But what really keeps me awake at night is how bad we are as a world at accepting, understanding and appreciating people of different communities, faiths, colours. As Simon Schama, the historian said at a conference I went to, ‘In the west we have the sophistication, knowledge and prowess to send a missile to destroy a house at a particular address in Kabul, yet we have almost no-one who can speak Pashtun.’
What are your ambitions for the future?
I hope to continue to use my position in television to make programmes that broaden people’s minds about the important issues that face us, to change stereotypical perceptions about others, and inspire people to get out there and make the world a better, juster, fairer place.
