While looking through my studio bin, I found an old newspaper from the 80s, and in it this story:
There was this couple, who worked in the microelectronics industry, and their relationship was, described euphemistically by the journalist in the terminology of the day, ‘stormy’. After yet another fight in the pub, the woman threw a videotape at her boyfriend and left. A week later she killed herself. Only then did the boyfriend think to watch the tape. It was a video apology for her behaviour. But in it she said that if he didn’t care enough to watch the tape within the week she would know that she had ruined everything and life just wouldn’t be worth living.’
With no conscious purpose in mind, I saved the article.
Paraphrased and changed from A Note on Red Shift, Alan Garner, in the booklet of the DVD Red Shift, London, BFI, 2014.
Red Shift was filmed on 16mm and transferred to videotape for its broadcast in January 1978