Seaside Parish - A resounding success
The first series of Seaside Parish was shown in six weekly episodes of half an hour during February and March 2004 on BBC2. It was an immediate success, attracting over 2 million viewers to each episode, and steadily increasing the numbers as the series progressed. The national media profiled Christine Musser extensively, and Boscastle itself was quick to recognise the benefits for its tourist trade.
One of the things which the Diocese recognised was the need to protect Christine Musser from too much additional work which might stem from the television series. A very considerable amount of correspondence and e mail was generated, some of which required sensitive pastoral handling, and some which was much more mundane ‘Can you recommend a good local campsite, Vicar?' All who wrote always received acknowledgment, and Tiger Aspect produced postcards to assist with the correspondence which was handled by Jeremy Dowling, the Communications Officer, who assisted Christine in dealing with the mail - almost all of which was positive.
Important pastoral or social issues resulted in an extensive postbag; care of the dying; cancer sufferers; remarriage of divorcees; second home ownership generated lively correspondence. But there was also much which spoke of loneliness, isolation and a feeling of being cut off from the Church or from family or friends, where writers unburdened themselves to a priest on a television screen whom they saw as an individual, a friend, and someone who would listen. Christine herself found this ability of strangers to identify so readily with her sometimes quite hard to handle; after all, as she was at pains to point out, her main concern had to be for her immediate parishioners.
The BBC was so pleased with the results of Seaside Parish that it wasted no time in commissioning a further series, which Nigel Farrell and Tiger Aspect were eager to film. The parishes were benefitting from the increased influx of visitors, and so were the local churches - but would the parish priest want to continue with this goldfish-bowl existence?
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