Personally I Blame Angela Rippon

As Bart Simpson once remarked "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't." To read some of the reaction to Natasha Kaplinsky's appearance on BBC TV's "Who Do You Think You Are?" this week you would have thought she was guilty of crimes against humanity or at least pissing on Frank Bough's favourite cardigan.

Remember when newsreaders just read the news? If you answered yes then you must be over forty, can remember when we only had two television stations in this country and the national anthem was always played after Bert Ford presented the late weather forecast on BBC1. The criticism of Ms Kaplinsky and the programme seems to fall into three categories: a) the personal attacks on her integrity, b)the fact that she's only a newsreader and c)the historical background wasn't fully explained.

My own thoughts on the three points above are as follows.

a) When Natasha was in the taxi travelling from the airport she said that she had always wondered why passport checks took so long when she arrived in South Africa with her father and that she imagined that the family name was on a list somewhere and that they were being followed (or words to that effect), but she added that her father had never told her why. Cynics might, and have, say "well why didn't she ask him?" Well suppose she didn't want to out of respect. My wife has never asked her mother about her father, Janis's Dad died when she was four and she knows that there is something in the family past that has been covered-up and has said to me she doesn't want to investigate her father's past until her Mum is dead. Natasha Kaplinsky may have regarded this chapter of the family history as closed, her father not wanting to talk about his involvement in a sit-in during Apartheid being respected by her daughter. Rather than go in for character assassination I think this is something I respect. My Grandmother never knew about my Grandfather's war record, I found out after both were dead, Jeremy Clarkson's father-in law famously never told his daughter he had been awarded a VC. Heroic deeds don't need either private or public airing to enhance their heroic qualities.

All that said, in the The Independent (the choice of the more discerning blogger!) on Saturday 30 July 2005 there was an article about Natasha Kaplinsky taking part in Strictly Come Dancing (or whatever it was called) which includes a four line paragraph telling the readers about what Raphie Kaplinsky did in South Africa and why he left. Mmmm, I'm not a sceptic by nature but I think I'm sailing on the good ship Sarnia when it comes to this point!

b) This one really makes me laugh, she's criticised, or rather the programme makers are criticised, because she's only a newsreader and not an ordinary person and therefore why should her story be any more worthy. Doh! The point about WDYTYA when compared with Family Ties is that is about people in the public eye. It seems strange that the people interested in the family tree of say Jeremy Clarkson, a journalist and television presenter, find it beneath them to find interest in the family tree of a newsreader. If you want to see 'ordinary people' researching their family history watch Family Ties, it's just as fascinating and you don't go in with any preconceptions. Oh and by the way, since when have we decided that people on television are not ordinary when they aren't on television? I think Katie Silverton's canoe instructor couldn't tell the difference between her vomit and that of any ordinary person as the wind carried it into his face during their canoe lesson!

c) The historical context of the programme relating to Belarus wasn't fully explained only to the extent that the Soviet-Germany pact that preceded the declaration of war wasn't explained. The fact that the Russian's didn't kill thousands of Poles before the Nazi's got there wasn't mentioned but I'm not sure this would have added anything.

My own criticism of the programme comes from a family historians point of view and I pointed this out on the POV board on a thread that actually dealt with the programme rather than Ms Kaplinsky's personality and choice of make-up. Her Great Grandfather Charleywood married an Afrikan with the name Vorster, I was dying to know if there was a connection between that line of the family and the Vorster who became South African Prime Minister and whose government were directly responsible for Natasha Kaplinsky's father having to leave South Africa. Such tantalising glimpses of possible links are what keeps us amateur genealogists going during the dark winter months!