Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Documentaries

Factual

Forgiveness: Stories from the Frontline

Gripping stories from people who've had to struggle with forgiveness in order to be free.

How do you survive and restore your life when something truly appalling is done to you? Journalist Marina Cantacuzino hears five gripping stories.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line: Jude

Jude

BBC Radio 4 - Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line, Jude

Jude Whyte’s mother was killed in a bomb attack in Belfast. He talks to Marina Cantacuzino

Jude Whyte’s mother was killed in a bomb attack in Belfast. How has he learned to forgive?

Jude Whyte was born in Belfast in 1957 to Catholic parents. After the sectarian conflict started in the late 1960s, several of his siblings left for England, but Jude remained in Belfast, taking a sociology degree and getting married. In April 1984, his mother, a part-time taxi driver, was killed in a bomb blast outside the family home. 

“In those days there was no counselling or trauma advice and initially I was full of bile and hatred. I became a bad father, a bad husband and a bad lecturer. My thoughts were only of revenge and I could feel the bitterness eating me up. I knew I had to change. You could say my revenge for the murder of my mother is my forgiveness because it has given me strength.”

Marina Cantacuzino is an award-winning journalist who became interested in forgiveness at the time of the Iraq War. It’s a subject she’s explored now for many years, in books and through founding a charity, ‘The Forgiveness Project’. A common theme running through these stories is that forgiveness is difficult, messy, and complex, but it brings with it the power to transform lives. 

Producer: Kim Normanton
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Burke
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line

Jude

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4