Two seismic documentaries

This week BBC and Channel 4 have commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing and the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Southern Israel with documentaries.

Of the two documentaries I found Brighton Bombing – The Plot To Kill Mrs Thatcher the more riveting.

Its chief interviewee Patrick Magee planted the bomb and, although he refused to give any operational detail, he carried little remorse.

He had some form of cathartic rapport with the daughter of one of the IRA’s victims Sir Anthony Berry, who admitted to meeting him no less than 300- 400 times.

There was no CCTV nor mobile phones to track in 1974 and Magee was caught by old-fashioned police work – checking out a rogue guest form and tracing its fingerprints to Magee.

The IRA’s 1970s mainland campaign did not achieve its avowed aim of forcing British withdrawal.

A significant reason for this was the tough and courageous attitude of Mrs Thatcher.

The Tory chairman John Selwyn Gummer observed that the bombing did not change her resolve, though it must have been so painful for her to lose first Airey Neave and then – in the conference during its final day – to learn that the bomb was meant for her but instead maimed so many she would have known and worked with.

The second documentary One Day in October was drawn from personal camera footage and memories from the Be’era Kibbutz – the closest to Gaza – that was attacked by motor cycle riders from Hamas.

The stories of death suffered by your loved ones (massacre might be the better world) and I wondered if those who sing Set Palestine Free made of it.

I would not classify either documentary as first class or definitive. Ken Burns – the best documentary maker all round – and World at War provided works of greater depth which make them more enduring.