Jonathan Powell interviews producer Betty Willingale as BAFTA pays tribute to her exceptional career in television.
With clips chosen by Betty to reflect her favourite productions the event provides a richly illustrated overview of the history of British TV drama from the last 50 years.
Willingale is also presented with the Academy’s Special Award in recognition of her outstanding creative contribution to Television.
This event was held at BAFTA Headquarters on 2 November 2009. About Betty Willingale
Betty Willingale’s career in broadcasting spans six decades and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
Having initially joined the BBC in 1944, Betty made her name at the BBC as a script editor and producer, nurturing new TV writing talent and working on key BBC drama series and serials in the 1960’s and 1970s, including North and South and I, Claudius. She went on to form a strong working partnership with producer Jonathan Powell, script editing many of Powell's most successful drama serials including the hit adaptations of A Christmas Carol, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Barchester Chronicles and The Old Men at the Zoo.
Wilingale produced the BBC adaptation of Mansfield Park in 1983, later going on to produce the critically acclaimed adaptations Testament of Youth, Tender Is the Night as well as Bleak House and Fortunes of War, both of which earned her BAFTA nominations.
She continues to work as a Consultant Producer on the ITV detective drama Midsomer Murders.
Its been a while since we last blogged so here
is a short update:
Most of the research being entered into the
family tree recently has been in respect of the Unconnected Willingale's. We have
had no luck so far linking any more of these family members into the maintree.
Thanks to a couple of generous donations from members, we are now able to offer
2 DNA tests completely free and are currently asking selected members from the
unconnected tree to take tests in the hope we can prove a link back to the main
tree.
We have recently spent a lot of time geo-coding
places in the family tree and now almost all places appear on the maps in the
member's area.
The documents and photos linked to the family
tree now total 926, I would expect us to pass the 1,000 mark shortly.
We have found some more details on William Willingale
who served on HMS Pompee, but still can't link him back to the connected tree,
our research on 'Royal Windsor' awaits the availability of a manuscript at the
British Library, which is presently unavailable due to refurbishment.
My research is still progressing on the history
of Thomas Willingale and the lopping saga. Trips to the Museum English Rural
Life, the newspaper archive at Colindale and the British Library all revealed
interesting new information. I still need to make further visits to Colindale,
the Essex Records Office and the London Metropolitan Archives to complete the
research.
News Update
We have just passed a major milestone in that the main connected Willingale tree now contains over 4,000 names! When we started out back in June 2002 we had just over 500 names in the tree.
Also the next edition of the Lopping Times is in preparation and will be emailed or posted to members shortly.
Following the release of the parish records from the London Metropolitan Archives on Ancestry we have managed to move one family from the unconnected tree over to the main Willingale tree. We are confident that Edward Willingale born 1778 in Maldon married Rebecca Argent in 1813 and that they had 2 children - Susanna and Mary Ann. We also know that Edward died in 1818. We don't know yet what happened to Rebecca and the children.
We have also discovered that Henry Thomas Willingale and Annie nee Bulbrook had a daughter Marie Annie, born in August 1891. Sadly she died in 1892 so she missed being on a census.
We are still awaiting more parish registers to be indexed, so there could well be some more Willingale families to move from the loose tree into the main tree.
To encourage more participants in our Willingale DNA project, the WFS Committee have agreed to contribute £45 (roughly half the costs of the DNA test) to the next 3 Willingales that volunteer to be tested. More details on the DNA project page.
Website Media Updates
More 'media' is being added to the website every week, recently quite a few new items on Thomas and lopping saga have been added, as I'm in the middle of some new research, trying to ascertain what actually happened to Thomas, and the other 3 loppers; Samuel, Alfred and William Higgins and how they contributed to the saving of Epping Forest. During this research I've noticed that the Loughton and District Historical Society will be holding a debate on Thursday 13th May 2010 titled Who actually saved Epping Forest? Which might be worth attending!
We also have some more photos of the Willingale restaurant and the family associated with it, kindly contributed by a cousin of the family.
Research Update
We are in the process of updating the main tree with female Willingale descendants, where our relations no longer have the Willingale name, and this should be appearing on the website shortly.