BETTANY HUGHES was brought up in the heart of the Church. As a child, she sang in the choir of St Matthew’s, Ealing, and her cricketer brother Simon played the organ — a talent inherited from their father, Peter, an actor who was taught to play the organ at All Saints’, Margaret Street, in the 1930s.
In last year’s obituary for the Revd Peter Watkins, Vicar of St Matthew’s and the C of E’s longest-serving parish priest (Gazette, 20 May 2022), Professor Hughes’s mother, Erica, is name-checked as co-author of many of his books. The broadcaster recalls her father as a Church Times fan, delighted when his writing, or her programmes, were reviewed: “He would send me the cuttings.”
“The brilliance of those places of worship is being great connectors and levellers,” she says. “Everybody is there, from all walks of life, having the same experience. The cultural ship carrying beautiful music, exquisite art, and poetry of our prayers was important. So, all of that was a big part of going — and not a cynical way, but in a celebratory, respectful, appreciative way.”
As an adult, Professor Hughes’s relationship with the Church continued. She married the events producer Adrian Evans at St Matthew’s. Their daughters were baptised there, and attended Sunday school, which she ran for a period. And, drawing on her early theatre career at Riverside Studios, she directed a series of nativity plays.
She has worked with Lord Lloyd-Webber on the Heritage Angel Awards, supporting the preservation of historic buildings for religious and community use. She is vice-president of the National Churches Trust, championing her parish on its celebrity web page: “Because all of life is here: St Matthew’s, Ealing, is my favourite church.”
Her spiritual life, however, remains a work in progress: “I wouldn’t say I don’t have faith at all, but I don’t know what label to give it.”
SHE was away filming overseas on both occasions when her parents died — her father in 2019, her mother at the end of 2022. “I suppose it’s inevitable because I travel so much. But it was a shock, because both times they had been OK when I’d left.”
She took solace from age-old religious rites around death. “With my father, it was strangely comforting being at the Pyramids, seeing the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and then in the tunnel that goes into the chamber under the Great Pyramid: something about that connection with millennia of people who have loved and lost. I was in the biggest surviving tomb from the ancient world, thinking about that.”
Full-on emotions are not usually a part of a TV presenter’s demeanour, but when filming Exploring India’s Treasures, Ms Hughes performs the Hindu Pind Daan ceremony by the banks of the Ganges, to honour her mother’s death, she is noticeably red-eyed. A Hindu priest instructs her as she releases rice balls, flowers, and wool into the Ganges, to assist her recently departed mother, and other ancestors, on their post-mortem path.
“It was inspiring,” she says, “sitting listening to that ancient ceremony where the priest was speaking ancient Sanskrit, which obviously I don’t speak. But hearing words that I recognised, like mother and father — Mata, Pita, and Grh for Earth, which then becomes Gaia in ancient Greek. We are literally speaking the same ancient language as each other. That sense of shared experience, priorities, and concerns was overwhelming.”
Professor Hughes found a spiritual sustenance in the riverside ceremony which was not apparent in the traditional church funeral rites. “It was the ritual of making food and then offering it, and having flowers for the departed and offering them to the river, who is also Ganga, a goddess, with this notion the person is dissolving back into the universe. It was a visceral, visible expression of an idea about soul and spirit.
“It’s a religious idea that [corresponds with what] scientists tell us about what happens when we die: the atoms don’t evaporate; they don’t disappear. They become something else.” Reflecting on the power of the ceremony, which had the film crew in tears, she says: “I was upset. But it was comforting and thought-provoking, and definitely nourishing.”
AS A classicist, she found it striking to encounter people who believe in a pantheon of living gods. “It’s very stimulating to be able to have a conversation about a goddess who is present now, whereas, obviously, most of the goddesses I studied people have stopped worshipping. In India, that presence of goddesses, such as Shakti, the female life force, is very stimulating.”
Astral worship also intrigues her. “To be sitting there with the heir to the dynasty of the Mewar family, Maharaj Kumar Lakshyaraj Singh Ji, whose family once ruled over Rajasthan, and for him to say: ‘Yes, I worship the sun every day; I get up and worship the sun because the sun is a life-giving force; why would you not worship it?’ That front-and-centre delight in ritual and belief is intellectually invigorating.”
Leyla Alizada/SandStone Global/Channel 4Bettany Hughes in Varanasi, India, where she was introduced to the nation’s religious buildings and ceremonies, with Anchal Sachan
Historical incidence of interfaith co-existence also appeals to her. Professor Hughes points to the late-16th-century Mughal ruler Akbar, who was raised as a Muslim, but sought to bring together the multiple faiths of his expanding empire. The architecture of his capital city, Fatehpur Sikri, features Hindi, Islamic, and Sufi designs, exemplifying his regime’s openness to other faiths.
She acknowleges that Akbar was not a saint, and she does not want to pretend that the Mughal Empire in the late 1500s was perfect. “But how brilliant that somebody’s got the vision and bravery to say, ‘Let’s see if we can make this work.’ This feels like the most obvious, crucial priority for humankind.’’
India’s generational transmission of spiritual knowledge, through Hinduism to Buddhism and to Islam and Sikhism, brings light to the present day, according to Professor Hughes: “Tarundeep Singh, who took me around the Golden Temple in Amritsar, was extremely articulate about that. He said our spiritual lives are very rich, because there is so much to draw from, so many different points of view and points of the compass. It becomes a family of philosophies.”
In the south, this includes the churches dotted among the mosques. “You see both Christianity and Islam visibly on the streets along the Malabar coast. Going down the backwaters, you see churches kind of pop up from behind the trees. It’s definitely knitted in and a natural part of life there.”
IN HER studies of the Early Church for the 2012 BBC series Divine Women, early Christianity’s commitment to social justice and the part played by women struck a chord. “I’m very aware of the messages of social justice from early Christianity, which was incredible and ground-breaking. Now, it’s being talked about a bit, but, when I was first working on it, not many people were discussing it. In terms of moments in time, it’s something historically to celebrate.”
Change in the part played by women in India’s religions is not something that Professor Hughes identifies, except to say, “Whenever I’ve travelled to India, I’ve met very feisty women who are very clear on their position on faith.” But she does see parallels in the Sikh practice of langar — community kitchens — and Christian welfare movements.
Reflecting on her time at the Golden Temple’s langar, she says: “Extraordinary — you can feed up to 100,000 people a day, 24/7. Those kitchens never stop, 80 per cent serviced by volunteers. And isn’t that a beautiful statement? ‘Whoever you are, whenever you come, if you need food or drink, or succour, or spiritual succour, we will offer it to you.’ And people really do travel from far and wide to eat there. I met students from the UK who’d come to volunteer.”
She was also moved by the compassion and forgiveness shown to the British, the perpetrators of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of pro-independence protesters. “I asked explicitly,” she says, “because I’m aware of this abominable chapter in colonialism.” The Golden Temple’s openness to those who come with the right intention, is likened to the New Testament Greek for forgiveness, aphiemi, meaning “to let go”.
Worldwide, langars are associated with disaster relief work, and, for Professor Hughes, this healing power extends to all sacred spaces. “Every time there’s a reason for people to gather — which, unfortunately, is often a time of tragedy — the place where you see people going to congregate or lay flowers is a church or a mosque. The fact that we are automatically drawn to those spaces shows they have value. That’s why it’s important to cherish and maintain them.”
Visiting a temple, mosque, shrine, or church is part of her working life, she says, whether on or off camera. And will she be back at St Matthew’s any time soon? As she answers, she’s momentarily distracted by emails about this afternoon’s flight to Azerbaijan.
“I’m honestly never at home. But I spend a lot of time in in churches, so I’m sure I will. Just not sure yet what my purpose of going would be. I’m very happy in a church.”
Exploring India’s Treasures with Bettany Hughes will be shown on Channel 4.