A BBC TV presenter has fallen out with her mother after fronting a campaign to end state funding of religious schools.
Alice Roberts, who sends her children to a Church of England primary despite her objection to them, was criticised by her retired teacher mother for leading the Humanists UK campaign.
She said she was ’embarrassed’ and ‘upset’ by her daughter’s move.
Alice Roberts presenting BBC’s Coast, her mother Wendy said Alice has ’embarrassed’ her
At its launch, Roberts, 45, a presenter of the Coast series, said: ‘You can somehow get access to what is perceived to be a better school by either being religious or appearing to be religious. That is unfair.’
In a letter to The Sunday Times, her mother Wendy – a retired teacher who spent many years working in faith schools – disagreed with her daughter’s recent campaign, saying that she thinks Alice is ‘picking the wrong fight’.
Wendy thinks that religious schools are not pushing doctrine, as her daughter says, but instilling important Christian values.
Roberts sends her children to Church of England school despite campaigning against them
Her daughter, who has also presented Time Team on Channel 4, is the incoming president of Humanist UK – a charitable organisation which promotes Humanism and aims to represent ‘people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs’.
Speaking to the Times from her home in Bristol on whether she had discussed this with Alice, Wendy said she hadn’t even heard of Humanism until she read a previous Times article on it last week.
She said: ‘I’m not going to discuss this with her. Not at all. Alright. I think we are on a battle. Let’s say there is inflexibility there. So no, I can’t do that. I didn’t realise she was so agnostic and I don’t really know why.’
Wendy was keen to emphasise to the paper that she and her husband were not pushing a religious doctrine either.
Alice’s father comes from science like she does, he’s a former church warden and aeronautical engineer.
The 45-year-old was awarded British Humanist of the Year 2015 for work promoting the teaching of evolution in schools.
‘We’re not sure what we believe really desperately, but we believe the Christian way of bringing up children is a good benchmark,’ her mother said this week.
Her chagrin with her daughter extends to the fact that she believes Alice is actually the one pushing a doctrine.
Wendy wrote in her letter: ‘Some humanists complaining about, and campaigning against, the ‘indoctrination’ of children in our church schools seem to be unaware that they are doing almost exactly that about which they are objecting.’
Alice Roberts presenting a segment of Coast, she said it’s unfair that people get access to religious schools by making themselves appear more religious to gain entry
She added that her daughter has every right to reject whatever she wants but said this is ‘proselytising for something else’.
She is worried that Alice’s high profile as a presenter will bring large influence to the Humanist campaign.
‘Celebrity swings an awful lot of opinion and for no reason other than that they are well-known. That is a form of indoctrination, isn’t it? Where do you draw the line?’ said Wendy.
Saying that there a lot of problems with state schools that she hasn’t experienced in church schools, Wendy added: ‘The ones I’ve been in have been run using Christian values rather than doctrine. To reject it all out of hand seems to me to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.’