A recent letter to James Burke
Dear Mr Burke,
I have a tale of incredible timing which regards your program Connections and I thought you might appreciate it.
The events end with the very sad passing of my Father in Law on the New Year's Eve just past, he had been ill with a failing heart for some time. But I am getting ahead of myself.
My Father in Law, was a school teacher in New Zealand and had a much celebrated career with a special enthusiasm for history - particularly the industrial history of Great Britain. Far and away his favourite telly program was Connections, he would delight in showing episodes to anyone, of any age, who sat still long enough. On one of my visits to his home, I noted that there was an episode missing from his collection and it soon became clear that he only had one series and that there must have been another one made. I returned to England and began to try and track down videos of the missing second series, but failed and began to doubt that I had seen a rogue episode/series at all. By chance, just before another trip to Wellington, I caught one of your episodes and was delighted to note that it was not from series two but that there was a third series!
I told him all about this when I saw him and he was frustrated that he had not seen or heard of the two extra series on TVNZ. Like any good son in law I promised to track down the two series for him. I trawled the catalogues of video shops and kept coming up blank and had all but given up when an email came back from a specialist shop, they didn't have one but had a contact in the US who did. After a few emails had zipped back and forth it became clear that the stock was for educational use and as such would be pricey, to say the least. My wife and I bit the bullet and ordered them, but only to be dashed again. The company could not export them to England because of the copyright, so we had them delivered to some friends in Philadelphia. They took a while to arrive and when they did it was at the same time as the friends were packing up to move house, so naturally the box got put into another box and like a Russian doll packed with micro-film it got bundled up and moved, along with everything else. The moving took time and the box (with the box within the box in it) was one of the last to be opened. Diligently, our friends took it to the post office and sent it on for its second of three legs. A month or so later they finally turned up here in England. Even though I am a good son in law, as I mentioned, but I could not resist the urge to watch the two series back to back and expose my three year old son to some of the delights, so by the time this was done Christmas was upon us. At long last, we bundled the box back up, slipped in some school photos of our lad and a card before taking the whole thing to the post office for it's third and final trip; only to be dashed again. The postage for airmail was more than we had in cash at the time and so we traipsed home, still with the box of DVDs and feeling very sorry for ourselves. After the weekend we went again and did manage to send it out, but missing the Christmas deadline even for air.
The parcel arrived on the morning of New Year's Eve, my Father in law and his wife opened it up and cooed over the photos and placed the card on the windowsill. His heart played up a little at this point and he took a small rest, when he woke up it was suggested he watch a few of the DVDs and take it easy until they headed up to their eldest daughter's for a family dinner. He did so and after watching a couple he added a few notes to his weekly letter out to us in England, as we had hoped all along, he loved the new material and found it every bit as gripping as the original; he told us how much he was looking forward to watching the two series over the coming weeks.
That evening, after they had driven up the valley for the family party the heart played up again. This time it faltered for too long and too gravely and as I said at the beginning, it became the saddest of ends to a year. On Sundays it was a tradition for him to send out his letter, even though it was unfinished and the last in a very long running custom, his wife sent it out to us. We cried to read his last thoughts, but took a huge joy from knowing that the recording made it out just in the nick of time.
I hope this finds its way to you and that the telling does some justice to the epic trip your programs took, to reach a man who liked nothing more than imbuing a passion and energy for the way technology shapes and affects our lives. Thank you for taking the time to read this and most of all for making really great programs.
Yours sincerely,
(Soong [names have been removed and replaced with he/she])
- No reply from his agent yet, but when I saw this thread I thought it would be nice to share it.