Three others of like mind were soon to join him in the quiet rural village of Taiz?ith its tiny medieval church.The themes of reconciliation and forgiveness ran through the life – and mission – of the community that developed. In the earliest days, as the Second World War raged in Europe, Roger and his co-founders sheltered Jews and others fleeing the Nazis. Brother Roger, who had dedicated his life to peace, reconciliation and forgiveness, was stabbed in the neck on Tuesday evening whilst at prayer in the vast concrete church at the heart of the ecumenical community which he began 65 years ago.
Born into a Swiss Protestant family in 1915, he grew up in Geneva, one of two boys with seven sisters. He studied to be a pastor but, as he was to write later, “was astonished to see Christians who, talking about a God of love, wasted so much energy in justifying division”. Roger Schutz, monk: born Provence, Switzerland 12 May 1915; founder, Taiz?ommunity 1940; died Taiz?France 16 August 2005. (Failing eyesight also led him to be registered blind eight years later.)Another of his plays, the thriller Dangerous Obsession (Apollo Theatre, 1987-8, and Fortune Theatre, 1988), was turned by the writer John Howlett into the 1999 feature film Darkness Falls, starring Sherilyn Fenn and Ray Winstone.A founding member of the Writers’ Guild in 1959, who later served as its chairman from 1968 to 1971, Crisp negotiated the first £1,000 fee to be paid to a writer for a television drama and persuaded the ITV companies to make a pension contribution with each script commissioned.Anthony Hayward. There is a profound irony in the violent and bloody death of Brother Roger Schutz, founder and prior of the Taiz?ommunity in eastern France.
He also wrote the stage play Fighting Chance (Apollo Theatre, 1985), set in a residential rehabilitation centre for neurological patients and based on his own illness, a malformation of the spinal cord diagnosed in 1975, which left him partially disabled. It was the first BBC2 drama series to be made in colour.Even during the five-year run of The Brothers, the prolific Crisp wrote scripts for Colditz (1972-74), the wartime prison-camp drama produced by Glaister. The pair then devised Oil Strike North (1975), about the crew and their families on a North Sea oil rig, for which the creators spent two years researching in Scottish coastal towns and on rigs and supply vessels. Crisp contributed Dixon of Dock Green scripts for 10 years, in between other work, which included writing for Dr Finlay’s Casebook, in one episode tackling the taboo subject of euthanasia.With Gerard Glaister, Crisp co-created The Expert (1968-69, 1971, 1976), which combined George Dixon and Dr Finlay by following the day-to-day activities of a forensic scientist, Dr John Hardy (Marius Goring). It followed the squabbles resulting after three brothers inherited part of their father’s haulage firm – the eldest had expected to have it to himself – and the old man’s secret mistress was also bequeathed a share in it.The family-business saga proved compulsive Sunday-evening viewing, attracting audiences of up to 11 million, with many divided over their sympathies for the domineering women – Jennifer Wilson as the school-marmish mistress, Jennifer Kingsley, and Jean Anderson as the matriarch, Mary Hammond.Born in Southampton in 1923, Norman James Crisp served in the RAF from 1943 to 1947, then went through a string of jobs – taxi-company manager, Marks and Spencer management trainee and typewriter salesman – while trying his hand at writing.
Indeed his eloquence could make any topic sound exciting, not least when he was talking about football, in which Pat Rivett had a passionate interest, and he sentimentally supported Millwall to the end.Alan Mercer. Norman James Crisp, writer: born Southampton 11 December 1923; married 1946 Marguerite Lowe (three sons, one daughter); died Southampton 14 June 2005. Bringing alive the sometimes unexciting world of business, by focusing on the trials and tribulations of the people who make the cogs turn, was a hallmark of N.J. Crisp’s long career as a successful writer for television.
Typical of his work was the boardroom-to- bedroom drama The Brothers (1972-76), which he co-created with the producer Gerard Glaister.
When his wife died and he was left with a young daughter, he worked part-time, before retiring in 1988 when the opportunity presented itself.Shortly after retirement, he found great happiness in his second marriage. A move to Cumbria enabled him to renew his contacts with operational research at Lancaster. With more time for research, he worked with health authorities in Lancashire on the delivery of health care for the frail elderly and the preventive management of coronary heart disease, because he firmly believed that OR was to improve the human condition.He also replied to the 50 or so letters that he received each week, for his natural affability had made many friends. Other universities quickly noted its success and Rivett was approached by Sussex, which at that time had a glamorous image. Making what he later described as a great mistake, in 1967 he moved to Brighton He was thoroughly miserable. The university did not like his contacts with industry, there were demonstrations against what he was trying to do and his filing cabinets were broken into.
Working from his desk in the Coal Board, Rivett set about transforming the club into a learned society, with a quarterly publication which has since become a leading international monthly journal.Whilst at the Coal Board, he had visited the United States and even taken a two-week course at the Case Institute of Technology, where he had struck up a close friendship with Russ Ackoff. Both teaching and research had a strong applications flavour. Thus in 1963 he became the first professor of OR outside the US.Once again, he was in at the beginning of something new and set about the work with enormous enthusiasm. The foundations were laid for the highest regarded OR department in a UK university Close relationships were established with industry. When Lancaster University was founded, its first Vice-Chancellor decided that Operational Research would be one of the first two departments to be formed and Ackoff recommended Rivett to Charles Carter. The excellence of the work carried out became widely known, and Rivett was delighted when his staff went off to other jobs, so spreading operational research (OR), with many subsequently obtaining professorships.During this period, he became the honorary secretary of the Operational Research Society when it was first formed from the OR Club. His natural talent for communication was first put to the test when explaining control charts to operatives who had left school at 14.The ending of the war changed the nature of the work and Rivett was transferred internally to the Ordnance Board, working directly to military officers on fragmentation patterns of shells and bombs.