‘The worst floods in a thousand years …’ ‘… biblical proportions …’ My heart goes out to those poor souls in areas devastated by the torrential rains of the last week. Lives lost, livelihoods in tatters, cherished possessions washed away, homes not only uninhabitable but uninsurable, unsellable … misery writ large. Puts the inconvenience of creeping plaster dust from the second phase of our restoration work into perspective, doesn’t it? … ie. off the scale.

Any trivial activity I report has to be seen against this context, but I aim to divert not depress. So I dare to tell you of a deluge of a different sort. A positive tsunami indeed.

Of film viewing, no less.

Now, you need to know that I’m not normally a cinema-goer, (all dates back to a puritanical upbringing) so going to a 3-day film festival is tantamount to an orgy! I feel the urge to hasten to an explanation.

It was a Biomedical Ethics Film Festival. And this year it took the subject of eugenics as it’s theme. Full title – Eugenics: Science Fiction or Future Reality? I take my hat off to The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (in conjunction with the ESRC Genomics Network, the British Science Association and the Filmhouse). They’re trying to do with films – but in a much bigger and bolder way – what I’m trying to do with my novels, viz. use a form of entertainment and enjoyment to put across thought-provoking material about the effects of modern technology and medical knowledge. And where I have questions for discussion on my website, they had a panel of experts to comment after each session. Immediate and there!

Anyway, I was especially interested in the audience’s remarks. It was like hearing reaction to what I do but at one step removed, in a way. One comment in particular made me sit up … feel hackles rising … spring to the defensive position. We’d just watched My Sister’s Keeper, about a girl who was selected to be a source of stem cells for her sick sister who has leukaemia: a saviour sibling. Now, I should add that the book of the same name, by Jodie Picoult, is far more detailed and finely nuanced than the film, but even so, watching the partial story develop is harrowing enough.

Picture the scene, then. We’ve all just snivelled through the slow dying of a teenager. Heads are down, white tissues smearing the darkness. The credits roll, shoulders are braced. The panel take their places in subdued silence. I am on the edge of my seat: having written a novel myself on this subject, Saving Sebastian, (due to be published next after Remember Remember), my antennae are fully extended.

‘This film is not about ethics; it’s about family relationships,’ says a voice from the audience. Hello? Believe me, I had to anchor my shoes to the floor! But that comment was a salutary reminder to me of the very narrow view of ethics lots of people have. Of course, in reality, the mother’s desperate need to keep her child alive, the daughter’s resentment, the brother’s divided loyalties, the father’s helplessness … all these things are part of the ethical decision: how far should we go? What’s right for our family? What’s right for society?

I’ve had to work at being a novelist, you know. Years as a University researcher honed my obsession with accuracy and detail. Teasing out fine nuances of ethical distinctions, being totally even-handed, not leaving anything out … all these inclinations have had to be suppressed to some extent to allow the story, the characters, to predominate in my novels, not the issues. So I know I’m super-sensitive on this point. The art of engaging hearts as well as minds is in making the characters live, giving them scope to make their own decisions based on their unique histories, values, beliefs, circumstances. Giving the reader/viewer space to come to their own conclusions.

Hmmm …. ahhah … OK, I take it back. It’s a compliment if someone doesn’t see the hidden agenda. If they say, ‘This story isn’t about ethics …’

I’m glad I didn’t wax defensive in public. I did, it must be admitted, defend the superiority of the book, but otherwise I contented myself with slotting another aphorism into my collection: you’re never going to please all of the people all of the time. Live with it; don’t fight it.

But then yesterday, on the main news, there’s all this hype about a new film for release in January: The Lovely Bones. I read the book when it first came out. It’s about a teenage girl who’s raped and murdered, and it focuses on her reflections in the afterlife. Now here’s the Prince of Wales pictured at the royal showing … the actors … the producer … even glimpses of heaven!! The book sold in its millions around the world they trumpet. (And incidentally appeared in this month’s Telegraph list of ‘100 books that defined the decade’.) But there isn’t one single mention of the brilliant author: Alice Sebbold. Come on! It was all her idea!

OK, we may need to efface ourselves in order to create good fiction, but let’s not be obliterated entirely!

Tags: Alice Sebbold, Ethics Film Festival, Eugenics, Jodi Picoult, Lovely Bones, Remember Remember, Scottish Council on Bioethics