Captain Moonlight: Careers that began in the name of the father

NOT for me, knee-jerk reaction and analysis; the Captain plays a longer game. Let me give you an example. Last week, in perusing a profile, I noticed that Gerry Robinson, the go-and- LWT-getting Granada chief executive, reviled by the creative tendency in television as a mere moneymaker, had studied for holy orders. Which set me thinking: there are a lot of them about, these people who had thoughts of shepherding God's flock before turning their energies elsewhere, aren't there? Tom Cruise, for example, spent time in a Franciscan seminary. Martin Scorsese also studied for the priesthood. George Carman, QC, that master of the courtroom, studied at a Lancashire seminary. A N Wilson, that master of the immediate and arresting cri de coeur, is another, as is Barney Curley, the consummate gambler, and Paddy McAloon, of the noted rock band, Prefab Sprout. And Michael Brunson. And Jack Dee. And John Hume. And Mark Tully. And Thomas Keneally. And, curiously, Dr James Sehn, the doctor who reunited John Wayne Bobbitt with that famous missing bit of himself. Something to think about on a Sunday morning, I should say.

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