Playboy Hefner dies

Hugh Hefner, whose death was announced yesterday, wasn't, one gathers, the nicest of men - although he does have his advocates among those who knew him well and those who regard him as a vanguard of progressive values. I might harbour doubts about his ethics, though there's no doubting his business acumen in cashing in on the mores of the post-war years. However, my single brush with the Playboy empire was quite different.

40 years ago Jane and I had been married for three years and had started a family, with our first child. I was teaching in my second teaching post at our local Catholic comprehensive near Watford. We didn’t have much spare cash, and had bought a grey two-door Morris Minor from a clearly trustworthy gentleman who was involved in a religious youth movement.  

My wife’s parents had a holiday home in the Isle of Wight. Our new (old) car’s first long run was to visit them there. To avoid the traffic we set off very early with our daughter on the back seat in her rectangular no-frills cumbersome brown carrycot – there were no fancy multi-purpose buggies in those days and of course no M3. All was fine and carefree until we were well away from London. I think we’d got as far as Hampshire down the A3 when the engine began to stutter; and steam – or was it smoke? – billowed out from beneath the bonnet. We pulled off the road. The first thing to do was to rescue our daughter from the back seat before the car caught fire. Then what? No AA membership and anyway no mobile phones. And hardly any traffic. The only thing must be to walk until we found a garage.

I don’t know if we prayed, but at that moment a white Ford Escort drew up and an attractive blonde emerged, and asked if we needed any help. By now it was clear that the radiator had run dry. The young lady knew the road and told us there was a garage a mile or so down the road. She offered to drive us there. While my Jane looked after our daughter with our car and belongings, I went with our rescuer to the garage for some water. She then drove me back to our car, where I was able to put enough in to get us on our way again. (Subsequently we repaired the radiator with sealant.)

It was only as she drove away that we noticed the small sticker on the rear of her car. It was the unmistakable Playboy rabbit silhouette. We concluded that she was a bunny girl driving home after a long night on duty. I’m sure we thanked her at the time. But if she should ever read this, we’d love say thank you again, for an unexpected act of kindness in rescuing a desperate young family by the roadside. I like to think we met an angel in disguise that early morning.

Mystery of Mary Magdalene

The Mystery of Mary Magdalene: I have just watched this BBC programme on iPlayer and am a bit bemused why Christian Concern announced in advance that showing it on Good Friday was "highly inappropriate and inflammatory" nor why they dubbed it "offensive". Melvyn Bragg concludes, "And I now understand why many Christians feel, despite all the many stories about who Mary Magdalene was, the most important thing is what she witnessed - the very first Easter." It was really rather good, I think.

Titian's Noli Me Tangere in National Gallery, London

Certainly it made me question some of the assumptions I'd previously made, particularly the conflations I'd liked to make bringing the Gospel stories together to make a coherent picture of Mary Magdalene (see God loves the red tops). I'm quite happy living with less certainty about that. Something which also should have emerged for anyone with an open mind was the essential historicity of the central events with which we know she was involved, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. As Professor Tom Wright pointed out, if people had wished to concoct a story of such an improbable event, the last thing they'd have done at a time when women's testimony was inadmissible in a court of law was have a woman as the prime witness.

I just hope that Christian Concern's many supporters did not in the event deluge the BBC with complaints about the programme. It's sad that in this instance CC (who often highlight real issues) prejudged a programme on the basis of a press report and mobilised indignation unjustifiably. In my view it deserves plaudits for being informative and balanced.

I think there's a danger of fuelling religious paranoia unnecessarily. I prefer the confidence of Pope Francis's Easter morning message: “We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means. What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom. God’s love can do this...." And his plea for peace, ending: “Peace in the whole world, still divided by greed looking for easy gain, wounded by the selfishness which threatens human life and the family, selfishness that continues in human trafficking, the most extensive form of slavery in this twenty-first century. Human trafficking is precisely the most extensive form of slavery in this twenty-first century! Peace to the whole world, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources!" Peace to this our Earth! May the risen Jesus bring comfort to the victims of natural disasters and make us responsible guardians of creation."