Chosen Ones 6 March 1988

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for 6 March 1988

Hello listeners!

Recently in London, a little boy with a ‘hole-in-the-heart’ was scheduled for the difficult operation, but it was postponed three times. This was a public hospital and there were more urgent cases. But the parents became angry, and asked a judge to order the operation to take place at once. He refused: he said he could not interfere with the medical judgement of the doctors.

There was great publicity in the newspapers. Finally, the operation – lasting ten hours – was performed. It was successful and the boy began to recover. But then his kidneys failed, and he died.

The parents were now satisfied that everything possible had been done. They said they had won a battle for justice for their child. But I thought: ‘Yes, the operation was performed. But some other child had to wait. No one thought about that other child.

I remembered that during the bombing of London 45 years ago, the German bombers dropped what were called ‘screaming bombs’, which made a scream as they fell.

An old lady told me: “One night, I heard a bomber drop a screaming bomb, it was falling straight down on me. I prayed to God to save me. And a miracle happened. I heard the bomb curve away, and it fell quite a distance from me. Wasn’t that a wonderful answer to prayer?”

I agreed, but I was thinking to myself: ‘What a surprise, too, for the people it fell on: they must have thought they were safe!’

© Trevor Leggett