Sir, – I was sad to read in your recent obituary (August 8th) of the death of pioneering TV producer Catherine Freeman, all the more sad because of her long association with west Cork and her Irish connection, through her daughter Lucy and grandson Conor, to the late and much-missed artist Paul Ringrose.
While the obituary was apparently syndicated from the Guardian, it was striking to note that under the heading “Fearless attitude”, one of Catherine Freeman’s cited coups as producer of BBC’s Panorama was the first televised use of the f-word in 1957, by our own Brendan Behan.
Interestingly while the Guardian mirrored Ms Freeman’s fearlessness in its account, in running the same copy this newspaper somewhat more coyly deployed those overworked asterisks to pull the punch.
Were they to be looking down, I imagine we can all guess the word that Ms Freeman – and Mr Behan – might utter. – Yours, etc,
EOGHAN NOLAN,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.