Colin Brazier, Author at Catholic Herald

Colin Brazier

Colin Brazier: Sunday mornings? I’m watching rugby

October 26, 2017

Ours is a house divided. By which I mean my wife takes the girls to Mass on Sunday and I take John-Jo to Saturday vigil. It’s not ideal. The family that prays together stays together and all that. But in a society where Sunday mornings represent prime recreational real estate, it’s a choice faced by

Why this Englishman yearns for Scotland

October 12, 2017

In our family we do not have the Book of Kells, but we do have a Book of Kelso. It’s a notebook dedicated to the study of the Scottish border town on the banks of the River Tweed. Why? The answer can be traced back to the moment we realised that our children could save

Colin Brazier: Shamed for having six kids

September 28, 2017

The friend who acted as best man at my wedding is still single. Gifted with good looks by his Italian mother, he is educated, well-travelled, wry and caring. Why then, at 50, does Nick have nobody to care for, save himself? There are reasons I can guess at, but there is also a general trend

Cormac was a TV natural

September 14, 2017

I only met Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor half a dozen times. As a TV journalist, I found him the perfect interviewee. When necessary – and that meant usually – he could speak in pithy soundbites. But when the occasion demanded, he could switch gear and cut loose that wonderful natural raconteur’s tongue. He was the third

Young adulthood is harder for women

August 31, 2017

What do I want for my children? Most parents, when asked that question, would say “for them to be happy”. It’s an understandable response, but I can’t help feeling it’s a wee bit spurious. The world is home to many people who are made happy by inflicting misery on others. One man’s mirth is another’s

Colin Brazier: Can I become a household troubleshooter?

August 17, 2017

Is fixing things in the blood? My wife, a dogged problem-solver, has regular “daughter of an engineer” moments. This is more than an observation of family history, rather a state of mind. If the washing machine breaks, her first recourse is not to reach for the warranty, but for a spanner. She will search YouTube

A prayer for the enemy

August 03, 2017

With a large family, trips to the cinema are not cheap. The clamour to see Dunkirk, however, proved irresistible. It was led by my eldest daughter, Edith, whose attachment to World War II movies can be traced back to an old VHS copy of The Battle of Britain. She still quotes verbatim passages of dialogue

Can we trust the experts on terror and first aid?

July 20, 2017

Every couple of years my TV bosses send me and others on a residential course to cope with working in a war zone. It was noteworthy that this month’s refresher contained a module looking at how to survive a terror attack in Britain. It was presented by a former Royal Marine. He had no time

Colin Brazier: Sentimentalists shouldn’t ride horses

July 06, 2017

In a world where all trouble must have a demonstrable cause, horses pose a problem. There may have been a reason why my ordinarily millpond-calm cob threw me off the other day, but who can tell? A burr under the saddle, a wasp in the tail, a bellyful of fresh grass, a stiffening wind, Aries

What the cameras missed on election night

June 22, 2017

Most television journalists, if they came to it via newspapers, retain a soft spot for print. It’s a purer medium, in that no part of the story is harder to tell than another. With telly, if the pictures aren’t there to illustrate a point, then it is either not made, or arrived at by a

A Hobbesian solution to the social care crisis

June 08, 2017

The petitioning has started in earnest. Candidates are making their pitches, pointing out the flaws in the arguments of rivals. It’s not the general election campaign, but the contest to secure occupancy of our eldest daughter’s bedroom. In September, God willing, she will be off to university. Her five younger siblings all believe this sought-after

Colin Brazier: How my wife became an eco-warrior

May 11, 2017

Back in Brussels. Not to present Brexit news, but to speak to MEPs at the European Parliament. They want to hear about Sky TV’s campaign against plastic pollution. It feels dangerously liberating, presenting an argument with the conviction of an activist, rather than with the even-handedness of a referee. The case, however, is pretty robust.

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What strict quarantine might teach us

January 26, 2021

Not all presidential inaugurations generate as much excitement as Joe Biden’s. The swearing-in of George W Bush in 2005, for instance, was a bit of damp squib. None of the drama of a new face in the White House, just Dubya starting a second term in office. But for me it was memorable. I reported

Remembering Sir Roger Scruton

January 19, 2021

My 16-year-old daughter is studying politics at A-level. I wasn’t sure it was the right subject for her. But – in between lockdowns – she comes home with stories of ideological spats in the common room that took root in the classroom; a sign, perhaps, that her interest in the course is catching fire. Endearingly,

Why the Germans do it better

January 12, 2021

I enjoy a lively old-fashioned pen-and-ink correspondence with an 82-year-old friend. She was an Oxbridge undergraduate in the 1950s and part of the pleasure in receiving her letters is in savouring the diction and idiom that fill them. Her stories are full of people who don’t avoid booze, but “forswear” it, and travellers who bought

Of death and statistics

January 04, 2021

“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” Coinage of the world’s most heartless quotation is disputed. But most agree that Joseph Stalin was sufficiently indifferent to human misery on an industrial scale to make him the likeliest author. As a journalist I recognise the hideous paradox coiled-up within that quote. Important

Taking Licence

December 28, 2020

If you’re a driver, do you remember how it felt when you passed your driving test? That sense of freedom. How weird it felt moving off with nobody in the passenger seat? Just you and the open road. My 17-year-old daughter, Agnes, had that experience this month. Her test was in Salisbury, medieval cathedral city,

Catholicism and the space race

December 17, 2020

Nothing against Chapter House, but my son’s not a fan. He’s only 11 mind you, and not a keen observer of the religio-political social media landscape. So I can say, without fear of discovery, that his Christmas stocking has a guiding theme this year: space. Perhaps it was that long car journey to Scotland in

Attack on Titan: The phenomenon you’ve never heard of

December 12, 2020

Early next year Japan will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tsunami that claimed more than 10,000 souls. Most of the victims were drowned by a wall of water which rose to more than 100ft in height and travelled up to six miles inland. A few days after the tsunami struck I arrived to report

The place for widowers

November 30, 2020

Is there still a place for the word “widow”? Has it become, to use the modern jargon, “problematic”? And, if it is, what – if anything – will take its place? I pose the question as a widower myself. That, and 30 years in the business of trying to choose the right words to describe

“The Crown”: Fact, fiction and something between the two

November 25, 2020

I’m self isolating with the five of my children who still live at home. My fourteen-year-old, Gwen, received a positive Covid-19 diagnosis a few days ago. There was no arguing the point. Her test was part of a pilot scheme organised by scientists at Porton Down, a few miles from the school she goes to

Crime fighting in the age of emoting

November 16, 2020

At journalism school thirty years ago, the police who caught the Yorkshire Ripper were held up as an object lesson in how not to break news of an arrest. At fault was their announcement on TV that – in not so many words – they’d solved the crime. For detectives whose efforts to find Peter

Blurred lines: The state and parenting

November 09, 2020

At the weekend parents in Scotland lost the right to “reasonably chastise” their children. In a couple of years they’ll be followed by their counterparts in Wales, when the principality introduces its own ban on smacking children in 2022. Devolution, it turns out, isn’t just about taking a different approach to Covid-19. Sweden was the

Is this the beginning of the end for the poppy?

November 02, 2020

Remembrance Day will look different this year. This may not be the end, but it may be the beginning of the end for the poppy. Covid-19 restrictions have made them more difficult to find. Many of the veterans who sold them are shielding. Places where you would buy them are shut or, like offices, depopulated.

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