Kate Chisholm

Quiet heroism

When did you last hear something on the TV that was so true, so direct, so resonant that it keeps popping back into your mind? If you’re anything like me you’ll have a struggle to remember anything.

issue 07 November 2009

When did you last hear something on the TV that was so true, so direct, so resonant that it keeps popping back into your mind? If you’re anything like me you’ll have a struggle to remember anything.

When did you last hear something on the TV that was so true, so direct, so resonant that it keeps popping back into your mind? If you’re anything like me you’ll have a struggle to remember anything. But change one word in that question from ‘TV’ to ‘radio’ and you might well be faced with another problem: too many moments of positive connection. On the Today programme last week, Captain Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who miraculously landed his US Airways plane on to the Hudson River, saving 155 people from certain death, gave extraordinary witness of his character. What struck me was not so much his calm, measured reflection on what happened that day but his understanding of how he had managed to react with such cool-headed precision.

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