Freedom Pass

It's been a good five years since the series created by Christopher Matthew and the late Alan Coren was last broadcast - but last Christmas Terry Waite revealed that he had been a huge fan of the programme in which the two would would hop on a bus to see where it takes them - geographically, historically and conversationally. So much of a fan that Terry even suggested that, were the opportunity ever to occur, he would be delighted to take Alan's place for another outing of the programme.

What the original series of Freedom Pass managed to do was to introduce the idea of two sixty-year-old men engaged upon journeys of discovery not merely of the London bus system but also of themselves. Their aim was, in their own words, "to travel the bus routes together, rabbiting as we go. about the history inside us and outside us, about the people and events, the books and films, politics and wars, loves and hates, that are jolted out of our twin and joint memories by the places that the buses --- both intentionally and serendipitously --- take us past and to."

It struck Christopher that this same aim, philosophy even, would lend itself beautifully to a special one-off jaunt with Terry Waite. Given the extra meaning that the word 'Freedom' would bring to a bus journey with, as Christopher puts it, "this splendid man at my side", the two met at London Bridge Station and made their way by bus to Trafalgar Square. Their travels and their musings took them past St Paul's Cathedral, university life, Fleet Street and assisting in amputations.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.