Tuesday 21 December
The Choice
9.00am (repeated at 9.30pm)
When Bobby Gerardot donated sperm in the early 1980s as a means of bringing
in extra income, it never entered his head that he might one day be contacted
by one of his genetic children.
But in January 2002 he got a phone call from Xytex, the company which
ran the sperm bank, telling him that a 17-year-old girl who had been conceived
through one of his donations, wanted to get in touch with him.
By this time Bobby was married to Lisa and they had a young child. This
was not something they had ever discussed.
Bobby and Lisa's choice: should they agree to let an unknown teenager,
albeit Bobby's child, into their lives with all the complications that
would ensue?
Presenter/Michael Buerk, Producer/Liz Leonard
BBC Manchester Publicity
A Chile Christmas
2.15-3.00pm
A Chile Christmas is the true story of an out of work actor travelling
across Chile and finding himself caught up in a series of extraordinary
events.
Peter Searles introduces an array of wonderful characters
and performs them all, complete with brilliant accents and broken Spanish.
Peter Searles, an actor, arrives to stay with friends in Santiago.
He stumbles upon a Donde Estan? protest, a call for the government to
explain the disappearance of political activists.
In his very funny portrayal of the scene - the carabineros turn up with
a giant water cannon which the locals call The Spitting Lama - he gives
a horrific eyewitness account of an old woman being beaten up by the police.
Running low on money, and needing to buy some presents, he goes to an
audition to make a commercial for Chilean TV and meets Roberto, also an
actor, but one blacklisted for his political views.
Peter is offered the commercial but after a battle with his conscience,
turns it down.
Walking home a man stops Peter in the street and asks him about his Greenpeace
badge.
They have a coffee and the man, called Hernan, asks Peter to help his
organisation to photograph evidence of the illegal logging that they are
convinced is ruining the largest rain forest in Chile.
He agrees and spends Christmas day far into the Andean Corderilla camping
by an extinct volcano. He gets his photos.
On New Year's Eve Peter goes back to London. Months later he gets a call
from Hernan telling him the International Convention on Endangered Species
has accepted the photos as evidence and enforced a prohibition of trade
in the Alerce Wood: "I felt as if I'd won an Oscar," said Peter.
Producer/Elizabeth Freestone
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
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