not eventually released until Brault personally released it in 1974. Newman himself had been regarded as a possible terrorist abduction target during the October Crisis, and armed guards had patrolled the headquarters of the NFB. Newman was concerned about the idea of releasing films with Quebec nationalist themes, such as Groulx's 24 heures ou plus, at such a tense political time, worried about what the Canadian public would think. Although it was Newman's deputy André Lamy who in some cases drew the monolingual Newman's attention to the controversial nature of French language productions, it was Lamy himself who later permitted the release of some of these same films after he succeeded Newman as Government Film Commissioner. When Newman's contract with the NFB came to an end in 1975, it was not renewed. Film historian Gerald Pratley claims that by this point, the NFB was "an almost-forgotten institution" due to "the stupor that had overtaken it." The writer Richard Collins felt that "the very experiences that enabled [Newman] to recognize the nature of the NFB's problem and the need for a change of diction and reorientation to the tastes of Canadians had left him out of touch with Canada." For his part, Newman felt that the NFB's French program had not made enough effort to communicate with people in English Canada or to make films that were relevant to "the ordinary men, who have no particular axe to grind." Newman went on to become a Special Advisor on Film to the Secretary of State, and from 1978 until 1984 he was Chief Creative Consultant to the Canadian Film Development Corporation. Later years Newman was awarded the Order of Canada in 1981, the country's highest civilian honour. Shortly thereafter he returned to live in Britain again for some time following the death in 1981 of his wife Elizabeth McRae, to whom he had been married since 1944. His main reason for going back to the UK was to attempt, unsuccessfully, to produce a drama series about the Bloomsbury Group for the new Channel 4 network. In 1986, the then Controller of BBC One, Michael Grade, unhappy with the current state of Doctor Who, wrote to Newman to enquire whether he had any ideas for reformatting the series, which was at the time struggling in the ratings and with its star Colin Baker about to be fired by Grade. On 6 October 1986,