Now that it's official, I can release the information: My book, family and story will be a one half-hour episode on the new series, Family Secrets on Canada's WTN (The Women's Network). The show debuts Monday, February 24, 10:30 pm EST Our story was the last one to be filmed (although ours will be the 12th episode - May 12) Filming for our episode included: a book reading; family gathering, my older brother and I returning to the home where most of the abuse occurred and to our former Kingdom Hall building in Aylmer, Ontario, which is exactly the same except now it is a Mennonite Church. Here is article in today's The London Free Press: Monday, February 24, 2003
Documentary series probes family secrets
By NOEL GALLAGHER, Free Press Press Arts & Entertainment Reporter
Murder, adoption, alcoholism, incest, transsexuality, anorexia, gambling addiction and infertility are among the explosive issues explored in very personal ways by Family Secrets.
"The subjects and these families' responses to their different crises and situations inevitably provide us with a glimpse into our own lives as well," explains Maureen Judge, executive producer and creator of the 13-part TV documentary series premiering tonight on the W Network, formerly known as the Women's Television Network.
The initial episode, Birth Mothers Never Forget, focuses on Kitchener resident Barbara Estabrooks, who recounts the trauma of being an unwed, pregnant teenager in 1965.
"In those days, getting 'knocked up' was the worst thing I could have done, short of killing someone," recalls Estabrooks, who felt compelled to give her baby up for adoption. "I felt so guilty that I didn't even tell my mom until I was four months pregnant. To keep it secret, our family made up excuses and lies and I was told to get on with my life."
Still feeling the loss of the son she never knew, Estabrooks helps her daughter, Melora, prepare for the arrival of her first child.
The Family Secrets producers encountered a problem when a Toronto hospital barred them from filming the baby's birth.
"Then I realized the real drama of this story isn't the delivery room scene. It's the baby's trip home," says Judge, who won a Genie Award for Unveiled, her 1997 documentary about mother-daughter relationships.
"Barbara, after all, didn't get to bring her baby home."
A London couple hopes fertility treatments will give them the child they long for in Best Laid Plans airing on March 31.
"Women my age don't usually get involved in fertility treatments, so I felt very alone," says Courtney Hern, 28, a program co-ordinator for graduate studies at the University of Western Ontario.
Hern admits she and her husband, Ryan, a consulting engineer, had to surrender a great deal of privacy for the two months required to film their episode.
"But it was a really good experience," she adds. "I hope that watching this program might help other women in my situation. And being involved with the TV show also got Ryan and me to talk more about the subject and share our feelings with each other."
The destructive impact drug and alcohol addiction has on a family is chronicled in Blowing Out the Candles, airing March 3, while the title figure of Introducing Debbie (March 10) is a once-married father of two teenage sons who wants to live his life as a woman.
Family Secrets is filming a profile of London author Donald D'Haene, whose memoir Father's Touch, published last year, chronicles the troubled childhood he endured with his sexually abusive father.
"Normally, we couldn't get close to the issue of incest because of the legal problems involved, but those questions didn't exist here since Donald's book is already out and the fact there was a criminal conviction in the case," says Judge of the still-unnamed episode that airs May 12.
The documentary maker adds the emotional crisis in D'Haene's life fit the criteria of Family Secrets.
"We show people thinking and reflecting on their lives as they face some extraordinary circumstances and hope the audience will be moved by their stories."
IF YOU WATCH
What: Family Secrets, a weekly, 13-part documentary series produced by Makin' Movies Inc. of Toronto
When: Premieres tonight at 10:30 p.m.
Where: The W Network
