Devizes family feud put off (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Devizes family feud put off

10:55am Thursday 26th November 2009

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Viewers expecting to switch on their TVs to see former Devizes mayor Noel Woolrych and his family at each other’s throats will be disappointed.

The programme We Are Family, due to be screened tomorrow, has been postponed to December 11 at 8pm on BBC2.

Mr Woolrych’s relationship with his father, a former submariner who spent months away from home when his son was a child, has always been strained, so when he heard about plans for the programme he was understandably dubious.

But he enjoyed the filming, which took place at a stately home in Shropshire where those taking part were royally wined and dined in exchange for washing their family dirty linen in public.

The main bone of contention was the long-running feud between Mr Woolrych’s father, Michael, and his uncle Toby.

The programme features the background to the feud, during which the two brothers did not speak to each other for 20 years, the final reconciliation and the handover of the painting that was at the centre of the row.

Toby Woolrych also managed to bury the hatchet with his daughter El, now 40, who stormed out of the house when she was 16 and never spoke to her father until the TV reunion.

About 30 family members attended the weekend.

“I felt that if only my father and my uncle could resolve their differences then the exercise would have some value,” said Noel Woolrych. “That was achieved, so it was worthwhile, if just for that.”

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