That pig journalist! [spoilers]

I personally am of a divided opinion about both Stanley Best (Sponsor) and Rodney Hallworth (publicist).

In their defense, the sponsor had a right to expect performance if he was handing out a large amount of cash to build a boat. And, after having read the very well written book " Voyage for Madmen, " I understand the details which simply were that Crowhurst was given a LOAN against his house. Thus, he put himself in the bind by asking for the money. Banks make loans like that every day. Crowhurst was clearly demonstrating cold feet and Stanley Best couldn't be blamed for protecting his funds. Imagine if he had handed over the cash & watched Crowhurst throw up his hands & decide not to go. Best would have been stuck with a boat and boats are not easy to sell.

The publicist was really nothing more than a "reporter" as described in the book who had started his own little "news" operation. I did some quick research on him yesterday & could only find one reference to him. In 1983, he authored a book about a possible serial killer in that part of England (possible because he was never convicted but heavily suspected).

Crowhurst was a man who was a dreamer of sorts. And dreaming of an around the world adventure is one thing. Doing it is another. His story was interesting because he was crumbling before the eyes of everyone watching. Even the townsfolk around the harbor of Teignmouth were mocking him as being unfit for the task. The book said that the papers only mentioned him as a contender one time and there was a very sad photo of him & his wife pouring a glass of wine in celebration prior to his leaving: just him & his wife and somebody holding the camera. Very sad.

On the flip side of Crowhurst's defense, he was caught in a multitude of lies even before the trip began. He claimed his boat design was "revolutionary" when the plans for it were intentionally being marketed to backyard homebuilders in kit form. He claimed his electronic devices that would be used to handle the boat were "patented" when they were not even developed. He had been "asked" to leave the Air Force and then later was discharged from the Army for "disciplinary" reasons. He and his wife had very shaky finances and yet chose to have FOUR children they obviously could not afford. Crowhurst made a lot of bad decisions. In the end, his bad decisions simply overwhelmed him and he lost his life to either suicide or accidentally falling overboard.

If anyone has information on the suicide being filmed, please respond. One person on this board claims to have seen film footage of the suicide as Crowhurst intentionally jumped overboard in front of the camera.

Well, remember this is how Hallworth's actions are represented in the film. Can anyone here claim to know the whole story? Can we say with any degree of certainty that the film maker's assessment of events is exactly as they happened? None of us is omniscient. Of course, when there's no bad guy it's pretty easy to turn to everyone's favourite Aunt Sally: the press. I'm not going to pretend for a minute that Hallworth's actions, as described in the film, were defensible but the truth is that there is very little we actually know about the man, other than that he was promoting Crowhurst and probably had to endure no small amount of professional embarrassment himself.

It's pretty easy to make superficial judgements based on very limited information. Hallworth, like all journalists, will always be a lightning rod for moral indignation and probably knew this the day he took Crowhurst on. You put yourself out there to be criticised and that's what happens. Journalists are human too.

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