It only seems like yesterday when BBC newsrooms would have to scramble to find an actor to pretend to be me when they wanted to carry an interview. I always felt like I was making some small contribution to the Arts by keeping some actors in occasional employment. Some of them also clearly improved my diction. The broadcasting ban, which barred my voice from being heard on the British media, was one of the more bizarre responses of the British state to the conflict. Of course political censorship by the Irish and British governments went much further than that. It pervaded all aspects of media broadcasting. It went much further than coverage of the war and of the political endeavours to bring it to an end. Sometimes the law was perverted as in the Broadcast Ban introduced by Margaret Thatcher or in Section 31 used by the Irish government, but just as often it was the sly use of political influence or the natural conservative bias of sections of the media, both in Ireland and B