JURGEN HESSE,
eclectic prize-winning radio journalist and author,died on
July 30th of complications related to renal failure. He had been on kidney
dialysis for several years. He was 84. Born in Germany in 1924, he emigrated
to Canada in 1958 and worked as a columnist and reporter for The Toronto
Globe and Mail, The Victoria Daily Colonist and The Vancouver Sun before
coming to CBC Radio in Vancouver. At the CBC, he was a freelance writer,
interviewer and producer for Ideas, CBC Monday Evening, The Hornby
Collection and his own series Identities. His documentaries won many awards
including an ACTRA Nellie, a Wilbur Religious Affairs Award and a New York
Audio Arts Festival award. After leaving the CBC in the late 1980s, he
continued writing and publishing, creating over two dozen books on various
topics from Immigrant Writers to Health Management as well as two novels and
several radio plays.
I began working with Jurgen in 1971 and had the task of turning an
accomplished print journalist into a radio documentarian, who developed such
a flair for the medium and a master of its technology that keeping pace with
him was a full-time occupation. Together we travelled throughout BC, the
U.S., France, Germany, the Channel Islands, Switzerland, The Balkans,
Bulgaria and Turkey, making programs on Mad King Ludwig, Martin Luther,
Victor Hugo,the last run of The Orient Express, Leon Trotzky, Peasants and
the Book of Genesis.
After I retired from the Corporation in 1997, we continued working together
on radio projects and publishing ventures, and he produced a dozen or more
remarkable short features on his declining health for the series Out Front,
originating in CBC Toronto.
