IOSH immediate past president Ray Hurst appeared on the Channel Four programme ‘The Fun Police’ to highlight how, through sponsoring the World Conker Championships, health and safety professionals are busting the myth that playing conkers is banned.
He said: “We want to destroy the killjoy image. We, as safety professionals, are prepared to have fun. It’s going to be an enormous event and typical of what I call quirky, British sportsmanship.”
As expected, the programme provoked a lot of discussion among IOSH members with some feeling it was “about the best programme we could get in today’s climate”. Other members felt it was “entirely as expected”, and some pointed out that it “just perpetuated the myth that safety officers are dull bureaucrats”.
However, many commentators took a more sympathetic line than that of the programme itself.
AA Gill, in his Sunday Times column, said: “We trust that our tea is unadulterated, our electrics are earthed, the boiler has a flue, and the lift was checked last week. All that is down to health and safety. If you’re in the business of making documentaries about the lives of ordinary people, then there are far more deserving candidates for the box’s mighty ire.”
The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Glasgow Herald, Teletext, and other publications broadly agreed. The Telegraph’s Patricia Wynn Davies said the work of health and safety officers was “quite heartbreaking” and that “their intentions are quite noble.” She continued: “Perhaps it’s worth considering too whether they are any more to blame for our risk-obsessed culture than insurers and an increasingly litigious public?”
Regional media have been quick to pick up on IOSH chief executive Rob Strange’s visit to the Palace for his OBE, with pieces in the Harborough Mail, Leicester Mercury and Lutterworth Mail.
Ray Hurst appeared on BBC Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ on Christmas Eve, along with polar explorer and presenter, Paul Rose, from the television series ‘Oceans’.
Proactive media work is also paying dividends on the airwaves and in print as journalists respond to IOSH news releases. Interview opportunities on BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Three Counties Radio resulted from a release headlined, ‘Tackling the tinsel tyrants’, about how health and safety is used as an excuse to ban seasonal activities.
Seasonal stress was the theme for another release, widely picked up across newspapers and professional media. Coverage included the Wigan Evening Post, Shropshire Star, Western Mail, News Letter, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, Personnel Today online, and other business publications and websites.
