In Liverpool today you can hardly turn a corner without ending up in yet another film report on the city's decline. Why, then, are so many Liverpudlians still frustrated by television's inability to recognise their real needs? Julie Walters , no stranger to life on Merseyside, returns to show what happened when those same people - from Croxteth, from. Bootle, from Liverpool 8 - were given the power to make programmes that said exactly what they wanted them to say...
The A5 special unit inside Holloway is the only therapeutic wing for women in the whole British prison system. Evidence is coming to light that some authorities would like to see it closed down. Bernadette Shannon was there for more than a year and on her release wanted to make a film about it. Community Programmes got in touch with the Home Office, the Home Office got in touch with the Governor. The Governor said no....
Three years ago Christine Ridg well and her two young daughters were paid a rare visit by her ex-husband. Although Christine had been granted custody of the girls, he snatched them and took them to his new home in Italy. She tells of her long and harrowing fight for her children. Her case is not unique: right now at least 500 children, snatched from Britain, are still outside the country, outside our laws.
The recently ended 15-week strike by Asian textile workers at Aire Valley Yarns in West Yorkshire was hardly reported outside Bradford. Yet today, against a background of increasing racial hostility, this Asian community often faces the grim choice of working in sweat shop conditions, or not working at all.
Old people now occupy half the country's hospital beds. They are mostly dependent on the comprehensive,care of the NHS. Dr Peter Fisher is the kind of hospital doctor who looks after them. He works at Banbury's Horton Hospital - the sort of local general hospital we all rely Oh. But Dr Fisher and some of his consultant colleagues feel that the NHS is now in real danger from Government cuts and privatisation. A week in his working life explains why we should no longer take him for granted...
Music and movement in a doctor's waiting room? Local girls accosting you on the street to ask your views on health? Your doctor sending a social worker round to help sort out your bad housing? That's what happens in Liverpool at Princes Park Health Centre where doctors and nurses are tackling the root causes of bad health head-on.
Peter Pan fights for life! -as the people of North Kensington oppose plans to close the much-loved children's ward at their local hospital. Unhappily cast as Captain Hook and his cut-throat crew are the doctors and nurses and administrators of the Paddington and North Kensington Health Authority. They want to improve children's services in the district by centralising them at a brand-new unit being built in Paddington. The professional and lay members of the health authority have to find a solution which marries medical excellence and the community's wishes-and all within a reduced budget.
The drivers and clippies of Putney Bus Garage step off their buses on to the somewhat faster route of the world's largest corkscrew rollercoaster. That's just one of the terrors and delights they try with their families during a day out at Britain's largest pleasure park, Alton Towers In Staffordshire. But no day out is complete without an argument or three on the long journey home. The kids slept right through it.
Lots of people think they could do social work, even more think that they know what social workers do -well you've seen Juliet Bravo handed confidential files from her social worker husband and even Coronation Street's Ken Barlow was offered the job of a Senior Officer. Open Space followed a group of social workers in South Wales during three days in June.
The unique quality of his reporting, whether it's on squatters in Philadelphia, or guerrillas in El Salvador, comes from a technique he learnt on the streets of his local community in New York where he and his wife Keiko Tsuno have run Downtown Community Television since 1972. They hold free classes for anyone interested in using video as a community resource, and lend equipment to their ' graduates ' who include tenants' associations, trade unions pressure groups of all kinds and high school students, and whose tapes are shown on the streets, in meeting-halls, in private homes, in schools and on local cable television.
A heart-attack victim is rushed into the emergency room with no pulse. Miraculously, the doctors bring him back to life, but two days later he is dead. Budgets, cut-backs, broken equipment and lack of supplies delayed the surgery that could have saved his life. The programme follows patients in two New York hospitals - one public, one private - to illustrate the vast differences in health care the two systems offer. At a time when our own National Health Service is under increasing threat this chilling picture of what happens in America raises disturbing questions about what could happen here.
Following public reaction to three Open Space films about the NHS, tonight's programme presents a major debate about the future of the Health Service. The participants all have a vital stake in the issues-whether as doctors or nurses, porters or patients.
A local community arts group echo the events staged by the Victorians in Belfast’s Botanical Gardens, resulting in Midsummer magic. Live music, balloon ascents and elaborate theatrics all feature.
A 3- and a 4-year-old introduce a child's-eye view of life. A few of us are lucky -we go to good nurseries But it's not such a happy story for the rest. Every day millions of parents and children are suffering because of the shortage of nursery centres. They don't share our happiness and peace of mind. There are three million of us under 5. Why does the government ignore our needs?
In a move that will have repercussions throughout the public housing sector, a Labour local authority has relieved its housing crisis by selling a council estate, and all its problems, to new private landlords. Its potential for profitable redevelopment has attracted private investment and now Cantril Farm in Liverpool is being renamed, repaired and rebuilt. Margo MacDonald looks into its past and, bringing together people and planners, surveys the future.
The badger is constantly being persecuted by man. Killed for shaving-brushes and sporrans; baited for sport and disturbed by local hunts and thoughtless farmers. Now Brock is protected by law, but although pressure groups like the one in Gwent are being formed around the country Britain's largest wild carnivore is still in danger.
Earls Court in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is one of the most crowded places in Europe. Its ever-shifting population of 15,000 is a mixture of more than 90 nationalities. Not only is it a royal borough, it is also a red light district with a high level of prostitution, a large gay scene and three times the national average of drug overdoses. The Open Space team went on to the streets and talked to anyone who would talk to them.
Peter Tatchell's massive defeat in the Bermondsey by-election last February followed 15 months of abuse and vilification from Fleet Street. He describes what it was like to suffer death-threats, hate mail and attacks in the street in what became one of the bitterest postwar by-elections.
In the event of a nuclear attack on this country, the government will put into operation emergency civil defence plans. Many doctors, nurses and health workers involved believe them to be futile. The plans, they say, are an act of deception against the people of this country. Tonight the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons explains what the public need to know to decide for themselves what our response to the threat of nuclear war should be.
'Bruised for life' is how one young naval officer describes his short term of service. In 1980 he was one of the first intake of a trial three-and-a-half year commission. By the end of that period only three of the original 21 are still in the Royal Navy. What makes a young man want to train as a naval officer? Why did so many leave? Three who stayed the course, but left in October, confront these questions in a voyage of rediscovery on the River Dart - from Dartmouth, where it all started, until they could go no further.
A play about people at war, and the reactions of an audience with a great personal investment in that war. ' I cannot think of a single war in Britain's history which has been so pointless,' wrote Lieutenant David Tinker , RN, shortly before he was killed in action aboard HMS Glamorgan in the Falklands War. That attitude led to 'Falkland Sound/ Voces de Malvinas'— a play dramatising his and some civilian experiences of the war-being banned from Plymouth earlier this year. Now the people of Plymouth have the opportunity to see and comment on the play as the Royal Court touring production comes to the Serenade Theatre.
For nine months the Snowdown Colliery Male Voice Choir put themselves through gruelling practice sessions in order to compete against the best of the Welsh choirs at the Miners' Eisteddfod at Porthcawl. With only the bare bones of the choir able to afford the trip to Wales, and getting more nervous all the time, the test piece, a spiritual about Jonah and the whale, seemed more difficult as the competition came closer.
The Burrell Museum recently opened in Glasgow to much acclaim and a great fanfare of publicity. While this was going on Open Space slipped into The People's Palace, a museum on the other side of Glasgow, with Billy Connolly and found that you don't have to be famous, dead or a millionaire to have a place in history.
In the shadow of the giant high-tech Selby super-pit, two groups of miners put forward the case that new technology must be used to benefit us all and not just a minority
Freedom Fighter are a rock band living on borrowed time. The drummer thumps his kit from a wheelchair. Before the lead guitarist can play, someone must rub warmth into his fingers. The bass player rests his guitar on a converted bedtable, and the rhythm guitarist needs help getting the strap over his shoulder. With all their problems it's a miracle they ever started playing music-music with a message for the able-bodied.
The reality of the blacklist in Britain is that thousands of ordinary men and women are being denied the right to work because of their political views. The image the press gives is that blacklisting is legitimate; that same press condemns the Soviet Union for denying the right to work to people like Sakharov because he's a dissident. Yet that is what is happening in Britain today.
Older women become virtually invisible in the media, except in a range of stereotypes such as 'granny' or 'mother-in-law', reflecting society's dismissal of older women as having little value. This attitude is challenged in Open Space by a North London Older Women's Group, joined by comedienne Victoria Wood and educational photographer Jo Spence.
'Actually, we're cannibals. We keep dead bodies in the cellar.' So jokes Sima, a bored Indian Brummie serving in her father's corner shop and dismissing the locals' prejudices with humour. Her aspirations are the subject of Feroza Syal's funny one-woman show. Performed to an audience who are invited to comment, the show becomes a lively dialogue about the experiences of young British Asians.
The Women of Durham Jail with Joanne Allen , Rosalind Ayres Selena Carey-Jones and Paola Dionisotti Durham Jail, prison population approximately 1,000 men -and 35 women. The women are locked up in H Wing, a maximum security unit originally opened for the Train Robbers then closed - for men - on the grounds that it was inhumane and 'unsuitable for long-term imprisonment'. So what kind of woman need to be contained behind three sets of bars under 24-hour electronic surveillance? In this programme, some of them speak for themselves through their writings and their letters.
Every year the Home Office makes thousands of decisions which can rarely be challenged in a court of law, yet can shatter the lives of individuals and families. In Open Space The Mohammad Idris Defence Campaign confront the Home Office about the rapidly-increasing pressure of current immigration laws and procedures on British black people.
This week Open Space goes on the road to Swindon's huge Brunei Shopping Precinct with the most open public access experiment so far. Over the past weeks an Open Space team has taken to the streets ofSwindon asking anybody and everybody to use a couple of minutes' airtime in any way they want. They set up shop in the middle of the precinct, turned on the cameras and waited to see what happened ...
You've got to fight somehow In a violent society No matter what you do In a violent society ..." Lyrics from a song by South African band Day One and like all their music, out of harmony with the BOSS class back home. DAVE, PHIL and TERRY, the three musicians who make up the band, recently exiled themselves to Britain, declining an invitation to military call-up in a state they see as Neo-Nazi. So, from Pietermaritzburg to Bournemouth. Bournemouth ... ?
'You support Tottenham and you follow your team - no matter where they're playing, the Spurs fans will always turn up.' (STEVE, on train) And turn up they do, thousands of them, STEVE and his mates, 87-year-old QUEENIE, vie and his 12-year-old son, GARY, MOLLY with her blue and white sausages; you'll find them every match day down White Hart Lane.
Poverty in Britain today has reached crisis proportions. About one in seven children is being brought up on Supplementary Benefit - that means 11.30p a day to meet all the normal needs of a 10-year-old. Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor is growing; tax-cuts for the top tax payer, benefit cuts for the poor. Child Poverty Action Group looks at a society where five per cent of the population still own nearly half the wealth, to find out who gets the benefit and who pays the price.
An epidemic of drug abuse is destroying sport. The roots of the problem are so deeply embedded that current detection methods don't provide a real solution. 'It's cheating at its simplest.' 'I'm not worried about what is going to happen to me in 20 years time because I've taken steroids.' 'It's heading towards total biochemical manipulation of sportsmen.' Does anyone who hasn't used drugs stand a chance of winning at the Olympics this summer? Can the problem be solved or have the authorities left it too late?
John Hadley wants to live a full life. Not only does he want friendship and family but also to do the simple things we all take for granted, like being able to wear his own clothes, spend his own money, or to go out when he wants. Now Maureen Ronksley can help him to do this. She is his advocate: a trained volunteer who represents the interests of a mentally-handicapped person living in hospital as if they were her own. Open Space looks at this revolutionary scheme based on relationships of friendship and trust designed to transfer personal power to people like John Hadley and 50,000 others who have always been denied it.
'It looked like an army camp in drag. That was the first impression ot a Lincoln hospital by an artist employed to brighten things up for both patients and staff. For the past year three artists, Terry Burbridge , Kan Furre and Dave Halliwell , have been working in two of the city's hospitals.
'Wherever a black man goes, where there's other black people he should feel at home....' So says Terry. But he's never left London before, never been to an airport. Now, with Debbie, Michael and Seeta, he's one of four young Londoners taking off on a journey back to their parents' homeland - Trinidad. Until now, for each of them, the Caribbean has been just a yearning, a dream passed down in fond family memories. But the trip is more than an exotic tropical holiday. Awaiting them is a confrontation with a society they don't know, a cosmopolitan confusion of races and cultures. They may blend in with their skin, but how alien will they feel in a rapidly developing third world island 4,000 miles away from home? Their reactions surprise even themselves.
'Amid lurid headlines about 6-year-olds hooked on horror, sex and violence a new term was born: video nasties. The Video Recordings Bill which seeks to outlaw these nasties has received all-party support in Parliament and will shortly become law. But now there are growing doubts about the measure.' Open Space reports on the issue and opens it out for debate with an invited audience chaired by Mavis Nicholson.
Since the start of the troubles 15 years ago the media image of Belfast has been dominated by the bullet and the bomb. Hardly ever is there a mention of the 'crack' - otherwise known as a really great time. Open Space took a film crew to the city and, with the help of people in the street, discovered where to go for a cracking time out.
One child in every thousand in Britain today is severely mentally disabled. Because the law requires it, special state schools exist to provide them with the opportunity for development, however tragically small their potential may be. Jean Watts is the headteacher of one such school, she made Children Out of Mind as a 'personal record of what was a very happy school', before the local health authority repossessed the buildings and most of the children were sent away.
Imagine the recession never happened, that Britain is booming. A Britain with new industries that are sources of fabulous wealth without scarring the landscape or polluting the environment; no crises, no widespread poverty; no racial tension; no hardcore unemployment-and a population with money in its pockets - in short, a Britain with a golden future. For one city in the United Kingdom this pipe-dream seems to be coming true. No city in the British Isles has seen such a transformation of its fortunes as Aberdeen. North Sea oil has pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into the granite city and has generated a quality of life for its inhabitants that is the envy of the rest of the country. How have the Aberdonians coped with this new phenomenon on their door-steps? Open Space goes to the oil capital of Europe to find out.
The book is The Butterfly Ball and Grasshoppers' Feast by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer, a children's story about woodland creatures going to a ball. The question is being asked of the Upham Road Dancers, a group of mentally handicapped young people preparing their own unique version of the story. Follow their progress through work-shops and rehearsals as they develop their characters in a quite remarkable way and then... the day of the ball arrives. As night falls the procession crosses the stream to enter a fairy grotto where the ball begins...
Alan Corkish - ex-stoker, docker and bricklayer, now a teacher in Liverpool -hopes that local people's ideas, including Terry's, will set the style for the city's new Community School system. With the help of the locals - and their Vauxy Theatre Group - the concept of school as a place where reluctant kids are force-fed 'education' for six hours a day is enthusiastically laid to rest.
Last Thursday, Ballesteros, Watson and Faldo commenced battle for the £50,000 British Open Golf Championship at St Andrews. On the Middlesbrough municipal greens the winner will take home 50p when Mark, Jeff, Dougie and Dave play their own private championship between trips to the Jobcentre. 'When you come out here, you become a man again for a couple of hours', Dougie on the 4th hole, 'you never know who you're going to play with - it's a great leveller'. The odd club comedian, the passing millionaire; that's when for these council blouse golfers the stakes become higher, maybe a fiver - if they don't lose their ball.
'Breast is Best' for babies - at least that's the theory according to the medical profession in Britain. In practice the message is different. Seventy-four per cent of mothers have stopped breast-feeding by the time their babies are four months old. Not least because the subtle way in which the baby-milk manufacturers promote their product through hospitals and clinics, has convinced them that bottle feeding is just as good. The result in Britain is unnecessary illness for some babies, but in parts of the Third World the result is catastrophic - millions of babies die or are permanently damaged each year.
A film made with dustmen in the city of Westminster. The rubbish in the title is the 700 tons a day left by the 75,000 people who live, work or enjoy themselves in the centre of London - even the Queen and Mrs Thatcher. This programme gives the dustmen's-eye-view. 'People hold their noses when they see us. It's not us that smells. It's their rubbish.
Today should be celebrated in Shildon: the first-ever passenger train ran from this little town 159 years ago today. Instead the town has come to grief, for its enormous railway wagon works closed in June, throwing most of the male population out of work. Ken Stabler and his brothers are the sixth generation of their family to work on the railways. Through their eyes the effect of a policy that has destroyed a town's proud tradition can be seen.
For the bulk of production line workers throughout British industry tomorrow's work will be just like today's. Mindless.... repetitive.... demoralising. But deep in the 'pot bank' they're trying to reshape working lives. Staffordshire Potteries, Britain's major mug producers, have adopted a new Japanese style of management. They are aiming to increase the motivation and job satisfaction of their employees by giving them more say in the company's decisions. But will this really improve work and conditions on the shopfloor, or is it just subtle psychology designed to boost productivity?
For 13 years, from 1969 to 1982, Gibraltar's only land border with Europe was closed off by Spain. Francis Gomila, a community artist from Peterborough who grew up in Gibraltar during the siege, revisits the Rock to discover what effect isolation had on the 28,000 inhabitants and how they see their future. How will the Gibraltarians be affected by Spain joining the common market? Does Britain want Gibraltar any more? The people of the last colony in Europe are determined that their voice should be heard.
Rape often happens in familiar, secure surroundings with someone who is known and trusted by the victim. The motivation is the same; not overwhelming sex and passion as is often believed, but rather a sense of domination, power and aggression. With the aid of dramatised reconstructions, rape victims tell in their own words the reality of their experiences and how their lives were affected afterwards.
Theresa John is 28 years old and a slow learner. Most of her life has been spent in special schools or training centres. Like her friends Debbie and Susan she has had to put up with the insults and patronising attitudes of so-called normal people. 'I just don't like the words mentally handicapped - it's not fair calling us that' (Debbie aged 25). But for Theresa life is changing, she has become a star athlete and is the favourite for a gold medal at this year's Mini Olympics.
Britain's mounting housing crisis is creating a growing class of urban nomads, single people and childless couples who have no right to a home but cannot be classified legally as homeless. The image of the homeless as winos or dossers has been shattered by a succession of public reports, yet local and central government continue to ignore the issue. Single Problem looks at who the single homeless really are and the actions they are forced to take to cope with the pressures of insecurity.
The miners' strike has been one of the most bitter and controversial strikes this century. Sheffield Policewatch, an independent monitoring group, together with Open Space, takes an in-depth look at the tactics employed by the police and the courts during the dispute.
What makes a law-abiding community besiege a government minister in a small village for four hours? Who ambushed a milk tanker in a remote Welsh valley and pulled out the plug, and why have farmers' wives been publicly bathing in milk? 'The fact of the matter is that we are the only country in Europe that does not have the political will to safeguard its own agricultural industry'. The Dyfed Farmers' Action Group explain how the government imposition of milk quotas is devastating the economy of South West Wales, and why some of the farming community are resorting to militant French-style tactics to get the policy changed.
Housing authorities can no longer paper over the cracks of the 60s social disaster, system-built tower blocks that are literally splitting at the seams. Setting an alarming precedent, east London's Newham Council has ordered the total evacuation of tenants from a nine-block estate. It's a victory for reason - but only after concerted pressure from 'The Blockbusters' -the Newham Tower Block Tenants' Campaign. This is the story of their constant fight against the misery and terror of tower block life - and the lessons they learn in the process.
Sunnyside School in Nottingham is one of a few primary schools starting Television Studies. For the last few terms some of the children have been focusing on children's TV. They talk about their findings.
Denise is 20. She has spent 18 years in care. Three years ago she broke into Hampshire Social Services and stole the file they had kept on her since early childhood. Tonight, using these records and with the help of people who knew her, Denise tells her story - from the National Children's Home where she was placed at three months old, isolation in a secure unit, an adolescence spent in a Youth Treatment Centre, to the birth of her son seven months ago.
Black music has become one of the most potent forces in western culture, whether in the form of American blues, West Indian reggae or African music. In the first of two programmes celebrating this black musical heritage, Chicago bluesman Julio Finn explores its meaning and significance with writers and musicians from Africa, America and the Caribbean.
In the second of two programmes celebrating black music, Chicago bluesman Julio Finn brings together performers from Africa, America and the Caribbean. Recorded in London's Moonshine Arts Centre, the performances cover blues, reggae and 'griot' music from West Africa.
Workers in the firing line, People in the street, and others not accustomed to being heard, come to the television studio to have their say on matters which affect us all. Selling Britain by the Pound is the first of a new occasional series in the Open Space slot, in which barrister Michael Mansfield takes on a brief on behalf of a group of concerned citizens who have a common cause. This week they take on those who have made privatisation one of the central issues of the day. A group of workers and users of public services and industry propose that social need and public will should determine the running of the economy, rather than market forces. Angered by the sale of British Telecom and other public industries, and concerned about the privatisation of local and health services, they argue for constructive alternatives.
The National Right to Fuel Campaign says that the funds already exist to improve the insulation and heating of Britain's homes -and it is lobbying for a national housing survey and a major investment programme. Yet this winter about 40,000 old people will die from the cold; if it's very cold the number may double. Jack Jones, now a leading member of the National Pensioners Convention, argues that we can no longer tolerate this annual toll of elderly Britons when most of these deaths could be prevented.
'May the work you've done speak for you, May the life you've lived speak for you' sings 88-year-old Frances Irving. But for most black pensioners there is no one who will speak for them. 'To tell you the truth-white or black-when a person reaches a certain age in this country nobody wants you around.' (JOHN PHILLIP , retired electrician) Many of that great influx of West Indians who came to this country after the war are now pensioners and for them the only way to get a voice and be noticed is to form their own clubs and groups.
Barrister Michael Mansfield argues on behalf of teachers, parents and pupils who believe that education should fulfil the needs of people and not of industry. Representatives of three comprehensive schools - ABBEY WOOD, Greenwich; HOLYHEAD, Birmingham; STANGROUND, Peterborough - and the independent KING EDWARD'S SCHOOL, Birmingham, discuss with experts and industrialists the role and purpose of education.
Rebecca started working as a stripper almost a year ago. The first time she took her clothes off was in a pub at lunchtime, and she was terrified. 'Then I realised the punters were much more scared of me than I was of them. The whole thing seemed like some strange kind of joke - and when I got my money I laughed all the way home!' In tonight's film Rebecca investigates the 'grind and bump' business, and talks to strippers and punters in pubs, clubs and at a stag night.
The lives of Britain's 17,000Â Vietnamese-born refugees no longer attract intense media interest. The familiar image of war-weary and storm-tossed 'Boat People' has faded, but the problems facing these same people today are even more complex than when they first arrived five years ago.
To the young people taken on by Shiftwork Theatre drama is something totally new. What emerges months later is 'documentary theatre' - surprising, tense, humorous and real. Through improvisation, the raw material of their performance is coaxed from the reality of their lives. Tonight Open Space presents a special theatre recording of Something's Burning, one of Shiftwork Theatre's unique stage shows.
When Fabian Smith read Barry Hines 's novel Kes at the age of 8, he was so distressed by the ending that he promptly rewrote it. Now aged 13, Fabian's passion for birds of prey has led to his back garden in Essex being turned into a mini aviary, where he and his younger brother Oliver train kestrels, buzzards and barn owls. At the request of Maya Wisbey , the boys' neighbour, Open Space spent a snow-bound week with them, recording their patient dedication to the birds.
People bruised by their experiences of the businessmen and professionals engaged in the death business say It's a RIP Off! Coffins give funeral directors a hefty mark-up-well over 100 per cent. Police officers at coroners' courts have been convicted of taking bribes for giving work to certain funeral directors. Children are being buried in the equivalent of paupers' graves at the instruction of the DHSS; and other child graves are being grassed over without the parents' permission. At a time of grief, many people find insensitivity and exploitation are additional wounds.
Rescuing poetry from its tame, bookish image, the third annual Festival of Radical Poetry offers a unique and refreshing alternative to mainstream literary events. This is the poetry of engagement, confronting contemporary issues and challenging the status quo. The inspiration of the Angels of Fire poetry collective, it brings together New Wave, feminist, black and experimental writers and dancers - a rare opportunity to see new poetic talent in the atmosphere of public performance.
A fact that many people find hard to accept is that nearly all of us use mood-altering drugs. Why are some legal and others not? What is the difference between caffeine and cocaine? How much do You actually know about mood-altering drugs and what the real dangers are? This programme features a Quiz to test your knowledge. Professor Anthony Clare is in the studio with several workers from the drugs field to answer the questions and discuss why people use drugs, where the problems lie, and how we can best respond in a way that helps People avoid drug dependency.
he wretched inhabitants of Dickens's story struggle to live amid the slums and brutality of Victorian times - for the tenants of Bleak House Estate, Burnley, little seems to have changed. With no money to modernise, and no clear idea of what else to do, the council want the estate off their hands with a quick sale. But many of the tenants have lived there for 30 years or more - no matter how bad things are, their roots are there.
'When we first started playing, we had great crowds coming to watch a pile of girls rolling in the mud.' Rugby has been a religion in Wales for over 100 years, and until some women in the village of Magor formed a ladies' side six years ago, 'Men Only' was firmly engraved on the 'chapel' door. The team is now well established, but how far have Welshmen accepted women on the rugby pitch? 'Men think of you as being unfeminine and aggressive, but where is it laid down that it's unfeminine to get dirty and have a physical game?'
In the spring of 1945, at a couple of days' notice, 98 medical students were taken from the sheltered world of their teaching hospitals and flown to Belsen, to give what help they could to the thousands of starving and disease-ridden inmates. In the weeks that followed, these volunteers witnessed scenes of nightmare and horror as they struggled to care for people who were physically beyond saving or had lost all will to live. On the 40th anniversary of their visit, and after a lifetime in medicine, some of these men look back and reflect on the meaning of that experience.
'No Messing!' That is the message to Britain's six million dog-owners from Elsie Thriggs, founder and president of Balham Dogwatch. Every day an estimated 1,000 tons of dogs' mess is deposited on pavements, parks and public places. Mrs Thriggs wants to see cleanliness and decency restored to our streets and a decent life salvaged for people.
When the painted wagons of the Peace Convoy made their way to Stonehenge last month, the ensuing scenes of confusion between riot police and Convoy were more reminiscent of the Wild West than the West of England. The vehicles are the homes of a number of different groups - from young families and unemployed couples to the hippies and anarchists much featured in the press. They share a communal life on the road, and for many the annual Midsummer Festival at Stonehenge is a religious as well as a social gathering. There is an injunction against their return to the site, but does the threat of this life under a wandering star warrant such high-profile policing?
In the late 60s British Rail axed a 20-mile stretch of railway line through the Peak District. Five years ago the overgrown line was forgotten by all but a few dedicated enthusiasts. Nobody can now remember who first suggested rebuilding the railway, but this seemingly impossible dream fired the imagination of a group of local people who are slowly proving to the sceptics that they have both the expertise and the will to see it through. Ex-train drivers, housewives, accountants, company directors, unemployed musicians, Peak Rail are turning out every week to rebuild and run a railway which everyone said was lost for ever.
Most black voters back the Labour Party yet few black people reach positions of real power in the party and there are no black MPs. The campaign to set up official Labour black sections aims to transform this situation, but it has met a blunt rebuff from the leadership. The growing row highlights questions confronting all Britain's black communities: What strategies best meet the needs of black people today? Changing the system from inside? Organisations for struggle outside? Stuart Hall argues in support of black sections, and Leila Hassan of Race Today chairs a debate on the choices facing Britain's black communities.
What has Margaret Thatcher , a door-to-door salesman, a music-hall double act, a cabinet minister, an optimistic tap dancer and a cheeky schoolboy all got in common? They're all signing on for the Action for Benefits alternative reviews of social security - Fair Means or Fowler.
Pippa is now 14 and, with her 8-year-old brother Lloyd, has for the past three years been looking after her mum who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Although still at school they're also free home-helps between the homework. But who cares about Pippa, or the 10,000 other children in a similar situation in this country? No one it seems.
With feminist writing and poetry flourishing, four up-and-coming writer/ performers provocatively take on an audience at London's Drill Hall Arts Centre. Barbara Burford, Jackie Kaye , Deborah Levy and Berta Freistadt explore the new directions they must take to counteract male dominance of their chosen art form.
To the Royal Ulster Constabulary they are 'converted terrorists', to the Republican community they are 'paid perjurers', to the families of the men and women they name for arrest they are liars 'greedy for money'. As one Loyalist supergrass himself admits, they are willing to make false depositions to achieve a reduction in sentence for their own crimes and the promise of a new life. In this programme the Republican. 'Relatives for Justice' and the Loyalist 'Families for Legal Rights' groups are seen campaigning for an end to the supergrass system. The lives of many who have been found innocent after years on remand have been blighted. A growing number of outraged lawyers and politicians say that juryless courts convicting on such dubious evidence is not a system fit to be called justice.
Three deeply personal and disturbing accounts of the experience of imprisonment. A Woman in Custody reveals Audrey Peckham 's nightmare five months on remand.
The Bloodfire Posse, a Jamaican reggae band, came to England in June for the Sunsplash concert in London. While they were here, they persuaded the Governor of Rochester Youth Detention Centre to let them put on a concert for the prisoners and staff. Open Space travelled to Rochester Prison with the band to record the visit, the concert and the rap.
Jon Alpert runs the Downtown Community Video Project in New York's Chinatown. From this base he takes off at a moment's notice as a virtual one-man band to report from all over the world - Nicaragua, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iran. His often exclusive reports are shown on network TV in the USA. He has won many Emmy Awards for the unique quality of his work. He remains totally independent. A month or two back, television was full of political reports and analyses on the tenth anniversary of the US pull-out from Vietnam. This video film is the result of Jon Alpert 's fifth visit to Vietnam. What we learn of Vietnam today, of Vietnam ten years after, is through the experiences, the faces, and the voices of the people.
Good evening. Here is the news. Tonight we bring you the usual information and opinions which have been conscientiously gathered from our official sources and Establishment spokesmen. You can rely on us to ensure that anyone else will be heard briefly or not at all. Tonight's Open Space gives the Glasgow University Media Group, once described as a 'shadowy guerrilla force on the fringe of broadcasting', editorial control of a programme for the first time. They present some of their contentious research on the news coverage of the Falklands conflict and the coal dispute.
Cameron Marsden spends all his time flapping - unofficial dog racing that is. Greyhound racing with the big money taken out of it. Evening meetings in the Yorkshire countryside with friends, fellow enthusiasts and a bunch of dogs raring to go. During one race Danny broke his leg and was to have been put down. Cameron saved his life, believing his secret training methods could get the dog racing again. But can Danny get back to winning form in time for the big one?
The sensational press coverage of the disease AIDS has created a climate of anxiety, alarm and even panic. In this film the Gay Media Group shows how the coverage has affected everyone, from the gay community and AIDS sufferers to the public at large. Fleet Street has repeatedly used lurid and misleading stories about the 'gay plague' to fan anti-gay prejudice. This programme explores the media myths and sets out the facts about the disease with the help of contributions from Derek Jameson, George Gale, Professor Michael Adler and Tony Whitehead
Key questions for the Nuclear Warfare Tribunal which was convened in London earlier this year by Lawyers for Nuclear Disarmament because of growing concern among international legal authorities. The witnesses came from all over the world and were examined and cross-examined by professional advocates before an eminent tribunal of judges.
Recently Dorset County Council gave permission for British Petroleum to drill exploratory wells on one of the islands in Poole Harbour. Next year, they have to decide whether to allow full development of the oilfield. But conservationists and some Poole residents are demanding a public inquiry. Patricia Scotland chairs a discussion on the issues with an invited audience from Poole.
That's the apology that many policemen make to battered women as they walk away from a domestic dispute, without helping. For women like Christine, Linda and Susan it's a frustrating and painful reminder that society is not treating the violence they suffer as a crime. Since a government enquiry ten years ago it should have become easier to get the protection and support of the law, or to escape and set up a new home. But, as Linda says, most of the measures introduced as a result 'are not worth the paper they are written on'. Alarmingly, the only organisation that is providing advice and shelter, Women's Aid, is facing a funding crisis.
Are people really so predictable? Is the camera only useful for 'special' and 'happy' events or could it play a larger part in their lives? In this film four photography students from Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham explore the reasons for taking photographs, tracing them back to family album conventions established in Victorian times. They reckon people could get far more out of photography, not by using fancy equipment but by recognising it as a powerful means of communication - available to everyone.
Graham and Linda, and Linda and Wayne are two couples with ordinary ambitions: they want to get married and live together. But they are classed as 'mentally handicapped' and attend an Adult Training Centre, learning the skills of everyday life. Their plans to lead a life of their own are forever thwarted by rules and regulations they find forced upon them.
In Britain suicide is as common as death on the roads. Every year 5,000 people kill themselves and many more attempt to. Almost everybody who has lost someone close through suicide feels isolated from the rest of us - normal grief is intensified by feelings of guilt, shame and rejection. 'I feel that because of the suicide other people are afraid of me ... I want contact, but there is space between me and most people around me.' Three families left behind talk about how they feel one year, three years and nine years after a suicide.
The fighting on the streets in Newham, in London's East End, is not just among young gangs. Old people and young children are attacked simply because they are black. Some have died, and many have been injured. The Newham Monitoring Project argues that police, schools and local authorities have not done enough. So black people have taken to defending themselves.
Eight teenagers leave Sheffield with little idea of what lies ahead. Four are disabled and have only recently met their able-bodied team mates. Their destination is Kielder, a huge expanse of water and pine forest deep in Northumbria's rugged border country. Here they must undertake a succession of gruelling tasks in atrocious weather conditions. Two days later they should emerge unscathed, but with a new-found understanding of the differences in each other's lives.
Far away from the 'studio experts' and television 'pundits', Vox Box is the sort of exercise that makes TV moguls nervous - asking viewers what they think about the box. Open Space builds a 'public studio' and puts it right in the middle of Europe's largest shopping centre - Newcastle's Eldon Square, inviting passers-by to get involved in talking with each other about television.
According to CROWD (the Campaign for the Right of Assembly and Dissent), that country could soon be Britain with the introduction of the first Public Order Bill since 1936, which heralds tougher restrictions on assemblies, demonstrations and rallies. The government says it is only responding to growing public anxiety about disorder on the streets and hooliganism, but CROWD argues that this new legislation represents a major threat to civil liberties.
On 3 January 1986 nine men began a historic march of 450 miles from the Gartcosh steel mill near Glasgow to the door of No 10. They embodied the spirit of the campaign which has united Scotland against British Steel's decision to close Gartcosh on 31 March. This film follows the marchers across the border and through the old steel towns of Consett and Corby as they carry their message south: that shutting down Gartcosh not only means the unnecessary sacrifice of 700 jobs but threatens the future of the huge Ravenscraig steel complex nearby. And closing 'the Craig' would be seen in Scotland as an industrial Culloden.
Monday morning - another routine day for the bailiffs, but for yet one more family the day of reckoning has finally arrived. During the last six years there has been an explosive increase in the number of mortgage default and possession actions. This programme looks at what happened to three families - why they got into difficulties, the chain of events that led to dispossession or forced sale, and their feelings about the situation in which they found themselves.
Kathleen Cripps is the JP dismissed for taking part in a CND demonstration outside the Derbyshire court where she sat as a magistrate. She committed no crime, and is convinced that she was unjustly treated. In telling her story, she raises questions about the nature of a magistracy which is supposed to reflect all sections of society.
The idea of abusing your own children, or even killing them, is beyond most parents' comprehension. But for loving parents to be falsely accused - and lose their children - must be the ultimate nightmare. 'She was screaming and I was desperate to explain what had happened but they wouldn't believe me.' Members of PAIN, Parents Against INjustice, use examples from their own harrowing experiences to demand improvements in a system which both failed to save Jasmine Beckford and sometimes destroys innocent families.
People are now discovering the price of insubordination and insurrection. And boy, are we going to make it stick! (IAN MACGREGOR , NCB Chairman) And it sticks in the throat of sacked miners like Alan Day. He was hardly involved in the strike but was arrested for standing in his own front garden on the day his neighbour returned to work. And men like Jackie Aitchison , NUM Branch Secretary in Bilston Glen, sacked by the NCB for a trespass offence not even recognised by the police. There are sacked miners all over the country who see themselves as victims of unjust anti-union trends but they are not forgotten by the network of active support groups who have made this programme.
It is now nearly 13 years since democracy was overthrown in Chile by a violent coup. A military junta led by General Pinochet has kept itself in power throughout those years by the systematic repression of any opposition through the use of arbitrary arrest, torture and murder. This film by the Chile Solidarity Campaign shows that, despite the virtual elimination of a whole generation of democratic political leadership in Chile, opposition to the junta is growing at every level. In particular, it has been women who have been at the forefront of popular resistance.
And yet the west of Cornwall, which they call Penwith, Once employed men by the thousand: at sea, on the land, And underground - where the men of tin have made their myth And earned their legend. Yet all that's in the smelter now - the fish have gone, The farmers fret with bills and quotas: tin prices crashed And miners laid off as Government looked uncaring on Our county's plea for cash.
Kenninghall is a small Norfolk village, population 730. To look at, it's not especially remarkable - in fact, by car you're in and out of it in two minutes flat. Open Space was invited to stop for a while longer to record a more realistic slice of village life than is usually seen on television. There's a church, but no resident vicar, no village policeman and only just enough children to keep the primary school open. It's like other small villages all over the country. struggling to survive the loss of many of its services and the threat of yet more cuts to come.
It's Called Jo-Anne always thought something was wrong. After all, his parents gave him away when he was only a 3-month-old baby. At the age of 19, while in the navy, Jo grew breasts; he was told to pull himself together and given tablets to make them go away, and for the next 20 years he was pumped full of drugs to make him masculine.
Eleni Poli and Chrystalla Marangou are Greek Cypriot widows living in Camden Town, post-war immigrants whose family ties keep them here. In this film they revisit the village of their youth, Lefkara, and discover the commercialisation of the crafts of lace- and silver-making, which has brought new prosperity to a village emptied by emigration.
In 1977 General Zia's military regime took over Pakistan. He promised to go within 90 days. Nine years later he is still there. Once in power Zia's regime had Prime Minister Bhutto, Pakistan's only elected leader, arrested, tried and hanged. The regime also had hundreds of Bhutto's supporters and activists executed, tortured, jailed and publicly flogged. Now, for hundreds more, exile to Britain is the only escape. They find British hospitality much qualified by a colonial past and bureaucratic present. But it is a free country and as one exile said, 'We have to make it home until we can go home.' This film, marking the 39th anniversary of Pakistan's independence, tells their story of living and campaigning both in Pakistan and Britain.
There are thought to be 330,000 Jews in Britain today. Many are the descendants of immigrants fleeing anti-Semitism in Russia, Poland and Eastern Europe before the First World War, and theirs is a complex heritage. No single factor holds the community together, but overshadowing it is the memory of the Nazi holocaust with its continuing impact on succeeding generations. This film explores the identity of Britain's oldest immigrant group through the views of a contrasting group of women, from the religiously very orthodox to the secular, at a time when fears are growing that the community is shrinking.
For Charlie Rossi life has gone full circle. Although his father Giovanni was one of the first of 15,000 Italians to settle in South Wales and Charlie was born in Ebbw Vale, he can never forget the Italian village of Bardi where they originally came from. Charlie married his childhood sweetheart Iolanda in Bardi and now their daughter Maria lives there with her husband Aldo and Charlie's grandson Giovanni. In summer the accent of the Welsh valleys takes over from the local dialect when Charlie and the Italian-Welsh return to their other home. As Iolanda says: 'My family laugh at me - I cry when I leave Bardi, and I cry when I come back to Ebbw Vale.'
At least 750,000 people in Britain suffer from Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Most are looked after by relatives at home. 'It's like looking after a mentally subnormal 3-year-old child. How can you think of them as your husband? It's just someone that I've got to look after.' Some of these carers use Open Space to talk about their daily heartbreaks and struggles, and how a healthcare system never designed to cope with the problem of dementia has virtually imprisoned them at home.
Parents and children alike are suffering months, even years, in cramped, unhealthy and often dangerous conditions. The councils' directors of housing now say they are powerless to stem the rising tide of homelessness. They say the real scandal is central government's unwillingness to co-operate and stop this suffering. What is happening in London's homeless hotels, and why are the councils powerless to act?
The Mangrove began as a cafe. But now it is much more. It is a focal point for one of Britain's oldest black communities, with a history central to the growth of black politics and resistance to racism. The people who have made the Mangrove what it is live on the 'front line' in All Saints Road in London's Notting Hill, a tense inner city confrontation zone between police and black people. This film, made by The Mangrove Community Association, examines the impact of policing on the area against the troubled background of race riots in the 1950s, through to the nationwide explosions of anger in the 1980s.
Hundreds of people fleeing persecution in the Third World reach Europe every day. There are currently 250,000 refugees seeking asylum in the West, and the doors are being closed. In late September 20,000 refugees, travelling in 600 buses, were turned back at the Bulgarian border to an uncertain fate. Is Europe right to deny sanctuary? Can it afford to help refugees? Can it afford not to? As Europe comes increasingly close to breaching its obligations under the United Nations Convention on Refugees, Anna Ford examines the issues involved and chairs a discussion with refugees, politicians and international relief organisations.
Anonymous threats at dead of night are not a normal outcome of archaeology. But when Glynis Reeve started to dig on Castle Hill, near Glossop, she dug up more than she bargained for. She had stumbled across an ancient Celtic burial site, on which people still celebrate the pagan feasts of Beltane (May Day) and Samhain (Hallowe'en).
Homelessness in the 80s has reached epidemic proportions. The problem is no longer confined to the inner cities, but exists in every area of this country. Pictures of Home talks to people in rural Cornwall, where holiday caravans have been turned into temporary housing, and where the tranquil beauty of the open countryside belies the misery and despair of their day to day existence.
London turns into Radio City for this imaginary day in the life of community radio. After hopes for licences to broadcast were dashed by the government decision to cancel its community radio experiment, the Afro-Caribbean Radio Project and London Asian Radio decided to make this film to show what might have been, had they been on the air.
Whatever the politicians and dramatists say, the reality for most casualty doctors and nurses is that there are not enough staff and resources to deal with growing demand. Many of those who come through the door are neither accidents nor emergencies, but the old, the depressed and those who prefer hospitals to GP surgeries. The real-life drama runs longer - a waiting time of three or four hours is not unusual. The resulting frustration and abuse is born by the doctors and nurses. These frontline health service troops are seen in action over 36 hours in one busy General Hospital casualty department - Whipps Cross, Leytonstone.
The medical establishment is both powerful and secretive. It is being challenged from within by two doctors. Recently they took cases to industrial tribunal on grounds of racial discrimination in consultant appointments - and won. They are the first to succeed in cases of this kind and this programme is their view of the health service hierarchy at all levels.
Andrew Miller, a history student at Stirling University, has been watching the ceaseless pageant of royal television appearances and press headlines for as long as he can remember - but he's begun to wonder if there's something seriously wrong at the heart of it. In tonight's Open Space, he argues that however the royal family are served up, it's always with the assumption that Britain needs a monarchy. But there are voices who say we don't. So if royal coverge was like ordinary coverage, what would the balancing opinions be?
The Border Patrol see them as targets in an endless game of cat and mouse. The Californians see them as an endless supply of cheap labour. But Louis Hock saw them for what they are - poor Mexicans seduced by the rich society across the border. He spent three years living among a group of Mexican 'illegals' in San Diego - recording their lives, their hopes and their repeated deportations: 'I have become a witness to an odyssey, an odyssey of millions.'
Dr John's practice covers 250 square miles of the North Yorkshire dales, and his patients are as likely to be a farmhand with a pitchfork in his foot as a baby with a cold. But he isn't just a GP. He and his wife Helen, a qualified nurse, race all over the dales in a specially equipped Range Rover attending accidents and saving lives. The money for the unit was raised by the local community at whose request this programme was made.
This film came from a moving letter written to Open Space by Kim Fisher , in which she describes the experience of losing her daughter, Holly, shortly after birth. Two in every 100 babies born in the UK in 1987 will be stillborn or die during the first month after birth. In her film - made with the help of the Birmingham Stillbirth and Neo-Natal Death Society - Kim addresses some of the emotional aspects of bereavement and offers guidance to help and comfort those who have suffered the loss of a baby.
More than 300 years after the Lancashire witch trials, The Rev Kevin Logan of Accrington rings alarm bells at the increase of interest in witchcraft in his area. Against the background of a Post-industrial wasteland a battle is being waged for the souls of the young. Local witches and satanists, however, fear that the campaign could become a latter-day witch-hunt. They claim that their religions are older than Christianity.
From pilot whaling in the Faroe Islands to the wild bird trade in Senegal, the Environmental Investigation Agency can be found filming man's inhumanity to animal. It has compiled its own harrowing film from the main campaigns over the last five years. The film explores its methods and motives, hopes and successes; and shows that those who buy caged birds from pet shops, or primates for laboratory experiments, bear some responsibility for the cruelty perpetrated.
Complainants about the use and abuse of strip searching confront the security arguments of police and prison authorities. The film includes a prison officer training demonstration of a strip search - and a very different reconstruction by ex-prisoners themselves.
The Hackney Empire was opened on 9 December 1901 and closed, like many other variety theatres, in the late 50s to become a bingo hall. Last year - on its 85th birthday - it opened its doors again as a theatre. To celebrate the occasion, Open Space recorded an evening of new variety there.
When Clare Short , MP, presented her 'Indecent Displays Bill' to the Commons, unsympathetic MPs responded with smutty and insensitive jokes. Tonight, Open Space attempts to give the issues behind the Bill a fairer hearing by inviting many of those concerned with 'Page 3' to join a formal debate from Girton College, Cambridge. The motion debated is 'this house would ban sexually provocative pictures of women from newspapers'. Speaking for the motion are Bel Mooney and Ken Livingstone , and against, Michael Gabbert and Linda Lusardi.
Human rights activist Hebert Marin was shot twice in the head last October. His tortured body was dumped in the gutter near his home in Cali, southern Colombia. His family believes he was killed by the police or the army. But this family tragedy is only one of thousands that have occurred in the last few years in Colombia, almost unnoticed by the outside world. Trade unionists, priests, civil rights workers, even prostitutes - all are at risk from death squads. Tonight his brothers and sister, now exiles in Britain, take over the Open Space slot to give their view of an ugly and brutal aspect of Colombian society.
This film has been made by scientists at London's Imperial College who actively oppose Britain's involvement in research on President Reagan's $30 billion 'Strategic Defence Initiative' or SDI. Like many of their American counterparts, the Imperial College scientists are deeply disturbed by SDI, which they see as yet another turn of the screw in the escalation of the arms race. Alongside contributions from several eminent scientists, is a poignant presentation of the case against SDI by Harry Fairbrother. As a mathematician in the Second World War he worked on the Atomic Bomb, which, to his horror, was used at Hiroshima in 1945. Narrator Bob Peck
The unsentimental voice of experience characterises the poems of the Second World War. Dennis McHarrie bitterly records the death of a fellow airman. Spike Milligan was driven to write his first poem by the sound of the London Scottish burying their dead. General Sir John Hackett introduces dramatised readings of the work of airmen, soldier, sailor and women poets who give a unique insight on war, and commends the work of the Salamander Oasis Trust who have published them.
History - hundreds of long-forgotten facts stored in rows of antique books collecting dust. Facts about kings, queens, statesmen - the makers of history. There is another kind of history, one in which we all take part, rich or poor - oral history. 'I can tell you all about Henry VIII but I canna tell you about Willie Bloggs ' so says Bella Keyser , ex-Dundee shipyard welder. Her story, and those of many more older Dundonians, is being kept alive by the work of the Dundee Oral History Project. This film samples the rich and varied history of the city which Winston Churchill promised he would ruin.
The hip-hop or rap scene came to this country from New York in the early 80s. The media exploited the new craze and then dropped what has become, for a growing number of young British blacks, a way of life. Tim Westwood, a DJ well-respected 'on the street', has made this film as a showcase for the talented young rappers, scratch-mix DJs and graffiti artists in London.
Most GPs will not register down-and-outs and others of 'no fixed abode' even though they might need medical treatment. One of the few practices that will see them is run by Dr Hilary Allinson based in a cabin next to a night shelter for the homeless in Oxford. With the help of Mike Hall , who runs Oxford's Simon House hostel, she spends much of her time helping alcoholics and the homeless, both young and old, who now find their way to Oxford just to visit the doctor.
Wells Cathedral is one of the settings for this year's most extraordinary church event - the first admission of women to the clergy of the Church of England. As deacons, women may now wear the dog collar, but they are still not allowed to become full priests and celebrate communion. The Movement for the Ordination of Women have seized this opportunity to explore the deep-seated sexual and spiritual resistance to femininity at the altar. Ann Easter is a deacon in Stratford, East London, whose ministry is presented as living proof of a woman's suitability to be a priest.
Eric Pleasants is 73 and fighting the hardest battle of his extraordinary life. A strongman turned martial arts instructor, he survived German POW camps by joining the Britische Freikorps, and seven years in a Siberian prison camp for smuggling people across the German border. He believes that his highly developed sense of personal survival and his fanatical physical fitness have helped him recover from a massive stroke which would have killed many and crippled most.
Despite growing public anxiety over the rising crime rate, little is done for the victims. The long-term effects of crime on these forgotten people can be traumatic yet remain unrecognised or misunderstood. There is now a spreading national movement of Victims of Crime Support Schemes and this film is about just one local group in south west Liverpool. In the face of a bewildering, sometimes horrifying, array of crime their philosophy remains constant: to turn victims into survivors.
For thousands of families in Britain, Remembrance Sunday is not enough. This film features four women who lost their husbands during very different conflicts but they share the same feelings of futility and isolation at the loss of their loved ones. Left to fend for themselves on meagre pensions, many war widows have been fighting their own very personal battles to this day. Suggested by a letter from a war widow, this moving film is a tribute to their courage.
This is the story of a marathon nobody heard much about at the time. It was called the Southend Seafront Superskate - 36 hours on roller skates up and down the five-mile stretch of promenade. The rules allowed a short rest at each end, but no sleeping. It had never been done before and some people had doubts whether it could be done but, early one morning in May, there were 160 young people ready to give it a try.
Sexual harassment, beatings, broken contracts, and even death threats - these are some of the allegations of ill-treatment being made by domestic servants working in Britain for wealthy visitors. Driven to work abroad to escape poverty in the Third World, many of these women find themselves treated as slaves once they arrive here. Kalaya'an is a campaign organisation trying to change the law to give these women the legal protection shared by other workers in Britain.
It's nearly 20 years since civil rights demonstrations precipitated the division of Northern Ireland into two sharply defined communities. A generation has grown up in this atmosphere. Leaving aside the opinions and views of the politicians and the political commentators, two young people, Mark Adair and Nuala Nic Sheain , tell, in their own words, what's important to them about the place where they were born and the communities they've grown up in.
Intelligence can often be cruelly frustrated behind a wall of inflicted silence. Louise is an active, attractive 13-year-old, good at cards, games and riding. She also has acute aphasia, a speech disorder which requires intensive residential schooling - if it is diagnosed.... Adam [text removed] started boarding this term, aged 6. His speech defects led to bullying at infant school, and his mother hopes this film will help others realise 'he's not a moron'.
The Gilheaney Family belong to a community of travellers living on an 'illegal "gypsy" site' in the Swansea area. Since 1968, the council has been required by law to provide official sites, but in south west Glamorgan there are none. The Gilheaneys live on the side of a road, without any of the facilities normally taken for granted - refuse collection, hot and cold running water, toilets. The local schools have refused to educate their children and when their pitch is not flooded, they are overrun with rats. Two years ago, they took the council to court and won, but still they wait and hope for a decent place to live. It's not us leading an outlaw life ... it's the council and education authority who are the outlaws.
On election night Mrs Thatcher committed herself to tackling Britain's inner cities. For the last 15 years Open Space and its predecessor Open Door have enabled people to make programmes under their own editorial control, many of which have come from inner city groups. This rich archive is drawn upon to present a portrait of the deepening urban crisis through the eyes of the people who have to live with the problems and have struggled to solve them. From more than a dozen very different communities filmed during the last 15 years, the issues remain disturbingly similar - bad housing, social dereliction, economic decline and mass unemployment.
The right-wing press has skilfully created an image of left-wing councils in London as dangerously extreme and irrational. This film, made by the Goldsmiths' College Media Research Group, shows that this campaign against the 'loony Left' has been based on a significant number of half truths, untruths and even fabrications. They argue that the press has helped undermine local democracy by providing apparent justification for Government proposals that will seriously reduce the power of all local councils, of whatever party.
Eighty-four-year-old Gladys Morris is one of the Shropshire legions up in arms about the threatened closure of their ten cottage hospitals. Surgeons, physicians, nurses and patients join together in this film to argue that not only are these hospitals essential to this large rural county, but they also make sound economic sense. These normally quiet country folk have taken to the streets to fight this latest attack on rural services.
Nobody gives up a child lightly, but in this country there are hundreds of thousands of mothers who have had their children adopted. People who haven't had to make this choice rarely understand the anguish that can result.
'We are not all repressed human beings. Many of us have responded well to the challenges of British society.' So says Munawar Nizam introducing her own film about Asian women in Britain. Four very different women's stories paint a positive picture of strength and independence, contradicting the usual images of passivity. In the face of adversity - immigration rules, handicap, social and housing disadvantages - these women reveal their unseen face.
Today, far-reaching changes in the social security system come into effect. The DHSS admits that there will be both 'winners' and 'losers'. For three years the Royal National Institute for the Blind has campaigned with other national disability organisations opposed to these changes. Tonight, through the experiences of those who will be affected, their programme counts the cost to sick and disabled people, many of whom now face an uncertain future with loss of payments and rights.
We've heard from the politicians, the journalists, the educationists - but what do pupils think of the massive changes about to take place in state schools? This film gives pupils from three very different comprehensives a chance to demonstrate the quality of education they've had in the state system, and challenge Mr Baker on some of the proposals in his Education Reform Bill.
Most of the residents of Beck Road in East London are artists. For ten years they've been able to concentrate on their work in the terraced houses which provide them with homes and studios. But now the street which they rescued from dereliction is to be sold. In this film they argue that the future of contemporary art in Britain is closely tied in with the future of Beck Road.
Stephen Burn , a gay journalist, has made this programme to highlight a prejudice which every day confronts people like him. It loses lesbian women and gay men their jobs, forces them out of their homes, causes them to be imprisoned and sadly drives some to suicide. Based on fear and ignorance, homophobia is on the increase. Its growth can be stopped but only when discrimination is tackled head on.
Easter week is traditionally the big catch of the year for Grimsby fishermen feeding the Good Friday faithful. But the catch this year was that the 'lumpers' (the dock labour force), wouldn't land the fish. Nevertheless the fishermen battled on against the elements; and travelling fishmongers Rob and Christine Hinchcliffe continued their weekly trip south to share the pleasures of the deep with their customers of Hampstead and Highgate.
Football, fashion, crime, sex, politics, - they are all part of the satisfying job Denis Kilcommons calls 'the best game in town'. He's deputy news editor of the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, one of the few remaining independent family-run newspapers in Britain. In the film, he explores the buzz he still gets after 30 years as a journalist.
West Country dairy farmer Mark Purdey took on the Ministry of Agriculture in the High Court in 1985 and won his case against the use of organo-phosphates to control warble fly in cattle. This film includes disturbing testimony from some of the many who contacted him with fears that they had been poisoned by 'ops'. He is also strongly supported by the Conservative Chairman of the House of Commons Agriculture Committee Sir Richard Body, who attacks the inordinate influence of the agrochemical industry.
There's no attempt at rehabilitation; it's just containment, and containment breeds resentment and tension. Bev, Edge, Titman, Llewellyn and the others are inmates of HM Prison Swansea, 'banged-up' for up to 18 hours a day in tiny cells, which are overcrowded and lack the most basic facilities. Worrying about their families on the outside, they pass their time in whatever way they can.
Prison officers in Swansea feel overwhelmed by the number of prisoners in their care which stifles any attempt at rehabilitation. The lack of resources constantly places them in vulnerable situations. It's only due to the good will of the prisoners that the system can work at all. The system is collapsing and the prison officers feel, like the prisoners, that nobody wants to know - 'out of sight, out of mind'.
For many of this country's six million disabled people, 1988 takes a notorious position in the history of their struggle for equality, rights and recognition. This year's controversial Social Security changes raised the temperature of disability politics, long simmering as a potential embarrassment for any government. This uncompromising documentary, filmed in England and Sweden, is made by two disabled people, Patricia Rock and Colin Low. Together they critically assess the conditions of life experienced by significant numbers of our disabled population, who day by day face intolerance, ignorance and discrimination in all aspects of their lives.
Next month Parliament starts to debate the controversial Water Bill which will put water into private hands. This film has been made with JAWS (Joint Action for Water Services) and it brings together concerned environmentalists, health specialists and people from the water industry. They fear that privatised water companies would seek to maximise profits, at the expense of the investment needed to ensure safe drinking water and to halt environmental pollution. They argue that, as a natural asset needed by everyone, water should not be left to the vagaries of commercial exploitation.
In Britain over 700 people are killed every year in industrial accidents. Thousands more are seriously injured on building sites, in factories and on farms. Yet there have been cutbacks to the Health and Safety Inspectorate, whose job it is to police the system. David Gee , who has been researching safety at work for 15 years, talks to the victims of accidents and asks who is to blame for the rising toll.
A 300-foot chimney in the centre of the Peak District town of Glossop emits eight tons of sulphur dioxide per day. This film, made by the Glossop Clean Air Campaign, expresses concern for the environment and the health of the local community and beyond.
There's only one real Albert Square in the East End of London. It's just a short walk from Stratford East, a traditional heartland of Cockney wit and wisdom. In fact, it's not a square, but is L-shaped, with a pub at one end and a little corner shop. The residents are a surprisingly mixed bunch, the newest arrivals being the Yuppies, 'which is the word everyone seems to use to describe anyone from a different background who's got a few bob'. Then there's the 'orrible pong and the things that go bang in the night! The programme is introduced by Albert Square residents Bob and Irene Stephenson.
Obviously I came into care for what was considered in my best interests. Now, uty best interests are to know. At 35, Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his coming into foster care as an infant. Foster Child is a remarkable documentary - unstaged. unrehearsed and directed by Gil Cardinal - about the process of that discovery.
Margaret Simey has spent a lifetime in public service and served as a councillor for the Granby Ward, the heart of Liverpool's inner city, Toxteth, for over 20 years. Following the 1981 riots she attained national notoriety as chair of the local police committee. Exasperated now by what she calls our 'them and us' style of government, she takes this opportunity to reflect on our democracy.
Most people enjoy the travelling fair when it comes to town, but little is known of the showmen who run the rides. They are thought of as itinerants, not the businessmen they are with a long and interesting history. They are part of Britain's national heritage, but what happens to them when the fair is over and the travelling stops? Excluded by law from planning consideration, many families are prevented from living on land that they own and are forced back onto the roadside.
Most people believe that British justice is, above all, just. If you're black, however, you're more likely to be arrested, more likely to be prosecuted, more likely to go to prison, and more likely to receive a longer sentence than if you are white, say barristers and solicitors of the Society of Black Lawyers. Using this Open Space, they argue that there is something dangerously wrong at the heart of our criminal justice system - that white Britons are sending black Britons to prison at a rate that condemns the system itself as racist.
Fear, guilt, an awful feeling of isolation and months of depression are common features of post-natal illness. It affects more than one in ten new mothers. Yet few people have even heard of it. A group of women in Kendal attack the conspiracy of silence which keeps people from knowing what causes this devastating illness and how they can be helped.
A film from the Campaign against Drinking and Driving. 'Drinking and driving wrecks lives,' the Government tells us. This film goes beyond the slogans and reveals the grief and outrage which torments families who have lost a loved one to drunken driving. Sympathy may be abundant but the Campaign against Drinking and Driving is having to fight for justice and changes in the law.
Beyond the suntan oil and the package holidays there is another Turkey, where oppression and torture are commonplace. Nafiz Bostanci , a Turkish political exile in Britain, goes home to face this other Turkey - and an uncertain future. A film made in Britain and Turkey with Nafiz Bostanci.
The Government's new Employment Training Scheme was launched with a fanfare of expensive publicity last September. For six months before that a pilot scheme for ET was run in Brighton. Despite being part of the prosperous south east, Brighton has an unemployment rate well above the national average; thus it is an ideal site to test the Government's claims that ET is tackling long-term unemployment. This film, made by the Brighton Unemployed Centre, investigates the claims of ET through the experiences of the unemployed. They conclude that ET is not providing real training or leading to real jobs: it's simply a source of cheap labour, while helping the Government disguise the true level of unemployment.
This is my home, and I'm not going to let anybody whose never even seen the place tell me what to do with it. SUSAN, council tenant With the setting up of Housing Action Trusts, tenants on council estates in Sunderland are in the frontline of the Government's plans for deregulation and privatisation of public sector housing. STAND is the tenants'group opposed to the Sunderland HAT. They fear higher market rents and token accountability could threaten the roofs over their heads. This film examines the controversial housing policy and charts the tenants' stand against its development.
The Scottish islands of Harris and Lewis are among the few areas in the world where a strict Sabbath is still observed. This lifestyle was directly threatened last autumn when a ferry company announced it would sail to the islands on Sundays. Outraged islanders formed a resistance movement and their eventual victory over the ferry company and outside pressures was a national story. The price they paid, however, was media portrayal as bigoted reactionaries unable to face up to the realities of the 20th century. The islanders strongly resent this image and here, for the first time, put their own case advocating their unique way of life.
The London Fat Women's Group believe they face discrimination as society considers them overweight. Through this programme the women want to challenge the slim ideal presented by the media and the diet industry. After years of dieting and self-hatred, the women are trying to come to terms with how they are, and want to challenge the oppression they face - in job opportunities, fashion, being refused entry to nightclubs, or being called a 'fat bitch' in the street.
Just 40 years ago building started on a hill overlooking Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire to create a new university which would embody the spirit of post-war educational optimism. But how has the University of Keele, the 'dream on the hill', fared in the cost-conscious 80s? Jessica Pemberton (student), Caroline Hackney (research scientist) and Chris Pike (Russian Studies lecturer) use tonight's Open Space to make their own films expressing their beliefs in the value of the University and their concerns about the threats to higher education hovering on the horizon from Government policies.
Two years ago, Harry Malkin was working down the pit. Now his magnificent charcoal sketches of life underground have been exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall in London. This was made possible by the work of the Yorkshire Art Circus which wants to take the snobbery out of art and give local people a voice in recording their own history. Ringmaster Ian Clayton. a local writer, takes a grand tour of the Circus to see the work of ordinary people who are not simply 'on Earth to make the numbers up'.
The two great untapped resources of Liverpool are being left to rot - a magnificent stock of over 2,000 listed buildings constantly needing attention and the 20 per cent of its workforce wanting both work and good training. Britain is short of 140,000 skilled craftsmen. In Germany they are investing in the necessary craft skills but not here. Liverpool artist James Schorah argues for action now to halt the loss of this city's architectural heritage and in the process train the next generation of craftsmen.
Filmed in Israel and the Occupied Territories, A State of Danger charts the development of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising), and the activities of the tiny minority of Israelis who support it. The programme explores the efforts of this group to challenge the brutality of the Israeli occupation and their attempt to push Israeli society towards a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians. Made by the Committee for Freedom of Expression of Palestinians and Israelis.
In January eight inmates of Drake Hall open prison for women were allowed out to go on tour with a drama production. But when they first met director Joe Richards and his drama students there was not even a script. In just three weeks, they turned their life experiences into a drama.
The Government tells us that in their free enterprise boom economy we've never had it so good. But many find themselves getting poorer, not richer: people like Bernadette Kendell , from an estate near Halifax, who is so desperate for money she's made Christmas crackers at home for 30 pence an hour; or Flo Udoh , a pensioner from London, who has to resort to putting potatoes in tinned soup as a main meal of the day - people who've been left behind by market forces, yet whose day-to-day struggle is affected by events and decisions beyond their control.
With live music from Squeeze's Glenn Tillbrook and Chris Difford , Steve Naive and the Playboys, Ranking Roger and Lynval Golding , 2,000 people recently gathered in London for a birthday celebration. But the guest of honour was notably absent. For three years British journalist John McCarthy has been held hostage in Beirut. With this programme made by the 'Friends of John McCarthy ', people like ITN's Jon Snow , ex-hostage Anthony Grey and John's girlfriend Jill Morrell criticise what they feel is the lack of serious international effort to secure the release of British hostages in Beirut.
The only part of slavery that has been abolished is its name, says the Anti-Slavery Society, 150 years old this month. They draw attention to the plight of the 200 million people who still live in conditions of slavery, including bonded labourers, child workers and tribal peoples. In this film, Dennis Waterman takes a voyage of discovery through the seas of misery, and charts the West's responsibility for them. He concludes that nothing has changed since Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote: 'Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.'
A young woman whose two daughters are being adopted against her wishes talks about her grief at losing them. A district nurse and grandmother, who spotted that her daughter-in-law needed help with her baby, approached the Social Services - she was devastated when the result was the child's adoption. The stories these people tell are subjective and powerful. They are telling their side of an experience which is seldom given voice. Many of us might assume that a child in care who is adopted must have had parents who abused or neglected it.... and the Social Services had no choice. That is not always the case. In the last ten years, compulsory adoption has risen sharply to 1,000 cases a year. That is three families a day separated for good despite parental objections.
There is much disillusionment about democratic processes when local opposition is over-ruled by decisions deemed to be in the national interest, as happened following the long public inquiry on the Sizewell 'B' nuclear reactor. Once again the 'Stop Sizewell 'C" campaign is having to demand a public inquiry to argue the case against the building of pressurised water reactors in Suffolk. This programme looks at the effects of nuclear expansion on local communities in Suffolk and Somerset, and assesses its implications for a nation now going green.
Employers desperately need women workers because of a dramatic drop in the number of school leavers. But who will look after the children while they are at work? Britain has fewer publicly-funded childcare facilities than other EEC countries. The government expects private enterprise and employers to provide nurseries and creches. In this programme, the organisation Childcare Now argues that Britain is heading towards the American style of childcare. Their concern is that this country will end up with a two-tier system - with a handful of very expensive services for the rich and a lot of poor quality childcare for the rest.
Can it be justice when a man is locked up in prison for over 22 months before his case comes to trial - and then he's found not guilty? Can it make sense that a woman charged simply with breaking a window serves seven weeks in prison before her trial, when all she ultimately receives is a probation order? In this film the Howard League for Penal Reform shows how cases like this lie at the heart of Britain's deepening remand crisis. By exploring the problems through the eyes of people directly involved, constructive alternatives to the use of custody are proposed. With support from Rumpole of the Bailey writer, John Mortimer , QC, the League argues that the current policy of building ever more prisons should be reversed and we should start closing some down.
In his visual and musical evocation of possible chaos and despoliation caused by our obsession with the car, town planner Graham King argues that unless present transport policy changes, there could be serious social and environmental repercussions - is our dream of mobility becoming a nightmare?
At the age of 30, Terry spends every day restlessly moving about the house, often screaming with frustration. His mother can barely cope. Terry has learning difficulties and is trapped at home because of the long waiting list for day-care places in the county of Avon. There is no law requiring local authorities to provide for all people with mental disabilities after school age. In this film, the Avon Mental Handicap Action Group demonstrate the devastating impact on parents and children who are being denied a life of their own.
Namibia, a country in south-west Africa with a population the size of Merseyside's, has variously been described as the most heavily militarised zone in the world and as having the worst poverty in Africa. What has it got to do with us here in Britain? Why did Liverpool port workers blockade cargos of processed uranium bound for America? How are British nuclear and mining companies involved? Why were 300 Namibians killed by South African forces in the first week of the UN-supervised 'peace' plan?
People don't realise that anybody can collapse tomorrow and end up in here. They just think - shut him away, he's bonkers. Albert Sutton , a patient at Tooting Bec Psychiatric Hospital, presents this film which was scripted, shot and edited on location at the hospital with the patients. With long-term mental institutions closing all over the country the patients feel that their views are rarely heard. For the first time you will hear from them alone.
Teaching people how to use drugs is not a demonic, evil thing to do, it's a way of saving lives and keeping people healthy. Most drug services in this country are designed to get people to give up taking drugs. But most users are determined to carry on. Should they be sent away to get on with it until they're ready to quit? Alan Parry , director of the Maryland Centre, Liverpool, argues that with AIDS on the scene, approaches that seemed unthinkable in the past have to be considered now, to stop drugs problems getting out of control.
On 16 May 1969 the calm of the Kent seaside was shattered as Folkestone teenagers rebelled against their victimisation by the town's establishment. Rodney Hedley and Denis Cullum were just Folkestone schoolboys then; two decades later they have made this Open Space film. It is a startling indictment of the retribution suffered by some of the misunderstood young who, despite their treatment then, remain today very much part of the Folkestone community.
A respected 55-year-old man is arrested and charged with possession of heroin with intent to supply. He has a long history of opposition to the use of hard drugs and has been critical of the local police methods. His defence is that heroin was planted on him by the arresting officers, as part of a conspiracy to attack and destroy the association he leads. He is black. This programme, made with the National Black Caucus, expresses concern about police conduct under the central government policing policy for multi-ethnic areas.
The RSPCA has given the Government until 1996 to introduce compulsory dog registration, a system which already works well in controlling the problem of strays in other countries. The staff at the Birmingham branch of the RSPCA reveal the growing crisis in Britain. They found new homes for 1,800 strays last year, but with as many as 50 new arrivals every day, they also had the distressing task of destroying 2,800 more.
I couldn't see what I was frightened of - that is what was so frightening about it. I didn't know what I was up against. (Jonathan Diaper) Some children find school terrifying, but the standard treatment for 'school phobia' is to force them back as fast as possible. Contrary to popular belief, the law does not require that children go to school - simply that they be educated. And there are other ways of achieving this.
One of China's foremost film-makers, Su Xiaokang , was forced to flee to exile in Paris after the massacre in Tiananmen Square last year. With fellow exiles, key figures on the authorities' wanted list, he traces the struggle for democracy back to its origins 70 years ago. The 4 May Movement of 1919 still serves as an inspiration to the students of today. This is the first opportunity for a western audience to hear the story from a Chinese perspective and to meet people whose lives were changed by these dramatic events.
Retirement in this country is equated with becoming poor. We are so conditioned to that, that no fundamental challenge has been made to that proposition - until now. Harry Clarke and Jim Bames of the newly-formed Pensioners Rights Campaign examine the ageist attitudes of our society and argue for a wage for retirement.
This year, around 40,000 young Irish people will cross the water to England, the latest of many generations forced to leave home to find work and another whose education and energy will largely be lost to Ireland. This film, made by four Irish people living in London, looks at some of the contributions made to life in this country by the Irish and follows one young man as he leaves Galway to start a new life in London.
In every major British town and city people live rough. Peter Buchanan spent five years as a down-and-out in the wealthy university town of Cambridge. Now a writer, he returns there to record the lives of the city's homeless.
Following the year of revolution, 1989, all the newly free countries of Eastern Europe turned to western-style democracy, but not one of them chose to adopt the British first past the post' voting system. This film, made by the Electoral Reform Society, examines the mounting pressures for change and ask what lessons there are to be learned from the proportional system chosen for Czechoslovakia's first free election for 40 years.
Tonight comedy writer Tom Boyes questions the racism, sexism and bigotry which are the staple diet of club comedy: 'If you don't do any Pakistani jokes the audience aren't interested in you ... If this is what the people want, that's what they will get', insists stand-up comic Frankie Allen. Controversial comedian Bernard Manning defends his work by claiming: 'You buy a ticket to see me, you know exactly what you're getting.' Are these really what make this the fastest growing form of live entertainment in the country?
Tonight's programme presents three films celebrating music, art and poetry from north-east England. There's music from Women May, a 14-woman-strong band from Gateshead; a visit to a 'room with a view' created by Keith Alexander and his team of 140 artists at the Tyne International Art Exhibition; and a look at Outlet, a magazine fighting back against Cleveland's reputation as a cultural desert.
A shocking survey published today by the research team of Opportunities for Women reveals there are some 13 million carers in the United Kingdom, all of whom will, at some stage in their working lives, face extreme guilt, stress, frustration, exhaustion and anger as they attempt to combine their working and caring lives. This programme, made by Opportunities for Women, shows how their responsibilities at home are misunderstood, or completely ignored, by the people who could do the most to help.
Made in association with the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the programme argues strongly against the international trade in arms and especially the export of UK military equipment to the Third World where these weapons have a tragic impact on the civilian populations. The campaign also argues that the UK arms industry should convert to the manufacture 'socially useful products'.
When women don't fit the norm of wife and mother, they can get rough justice in court. 'They were talking about the affair I had with a married woman and that was it straight away: she's a mad, young lesbian.' Sexuality, race and appearance can prejudice police, judges and juries. This film enables convicted women to question the mercy they were shown when proven guilty.
After 14 years of absence, Mai Masri , a Palestinian film maker returns to her hometown on the occupied West Bank, Nablus. The Palestinian uprising, Intifada, will soon enter its third year. This continuing unresolved conflict has disrupted the lives of thousands and led to many casualties. This is her personal view of the lives of the Palestinian children caught up in the situation.
Shirl Mahy founded 'Aftermath' for the support of the other victims of violent crime - the families of murderers, rapists and other serious offenders. 'It's difficult to put into words the devastation that serious crime brings to a family - you look at your husband and say "He's a rapist's father, I'm a rapist's mother". The world you know has gone in one fell swoop.'
Shakila Shariff , assisted by the cabaret act the Chuffinelles, finds out 'whether there's much in it for people' in the east end of Sheffield.
Last year one in every 40 Jamaican passengers visiting Britain on holiday was refused entry into the country and returned to Jamaica. They were not believed to be 'genuine visitors'. In comparison, only one in 5,000 Canadians was refused. This film, made with the Caribbean Entry Refusal Action Group (CERAG), investigates why this is happening, and shows its effects on black British citizens.
John Browning was diagnosed as having HIV in 1982, but maintains an optimistic approach to life.
As the Government prepares to open the telephone network to greater competition, independent computer network Greennet asks difficult questions about the communications revolution.
Aileen Quinton , whose mother was murdered in the Poppy Day bombing at Enniskillen in 1987, finds common cause with the victims of several other disasters. They are the real experts on disaster but their views and feelings are often ignored.
Infertility can strike at the heart of a woman's identity, raising feelings of guilt and failure. The Women's Health and Reproduction Rights Information Centre gives a voice to those women, through their experiences and personal diaries.
Harems, ayatollahs, book-burning, oil sheikhs, veils: the western media are saturated with images of Islam and the Middle East. At a time of Christian celebration, Rana Kabbani, a Syrian Muslim writer living in Britain, presents her disturbing view of the way the Christian west has portrayed Islam for more than 1,000 years.
A film based on a children's drama project, devised at the East End primary school featured in the recent BBC2 series Culloden. Made by Jill Hughes and her class with actress Dinah Stabb, this is a children's-eye view of racist attacks and bullying.
This Open Space special marks the tenth anniversary of a year when there were street battles between police and young people in over 30 British cities. The film charts those turbulent days and draws on the memories of the police, black Britons. Lord Scarman. Paul Boateng. MP, and the former Home Secretary, Lord Whitelaw.
Fur trader Henri Kleiman accuses the animal rights movement of hating people rather than loving animals, and he gives evidence of deceptions practised by the anti-fur lobby. Lawrence Courtoreille , elected vice-chief of 500,000 indigenous Canadians, asserts that animal rights activists have caused the destruction of aboriginal peoples, the wilderness and the animals themselves.
Steam train driver Clive Groome laments the decline and fall of the engine driver, against a background of growing public anxiety about safety and controversy over transport policy. In this film, drivers speak out publicly for the first time about the pressures of the job.
Ignoring the traditional segregation of different art forms, Michele De Pass and Zibby Campbell have brought together everything from poetry to circus skills for this, their 'dream' show, demonstrating why they say Britain should be more supportive of developing new ideas in the performing arts.
Martin Chlupac, a Czechoslovakian film-maker, sends this timely warning to the west about events there since the fall of the Communist regime. As he ponders what to do with the family factory, returned from State ownership after nearly 40 years, he creates a wry portrait of a society in turmoil.
Red Bank Secure Unit near Warrington is described by its head Lionel Jackson as 'a children's home with bars'. Now it's likely to close and the boys who live there will end up in prisons. Tonight's film was made by a group of young inmates and is a plea for their home to survive.
With millions in Africa facing renewed famine, images of Africans as helpless victims continue to dominate the media. In this programme, Oxfam questions the effect that this constant diet of negative images has on the way Africa and black people are perceived. Jon Snow , Michael Buerk , Lenny Henry and Tony Robinson are among those who share their views.
This programme pioneers a completely new form of television in which two sides of a a conflict communicate entirely through the medium of videos. Gypsies and i anti-gypsy protesters talk to I each other for the first time, pitching their respective arguments over the permanent sites Avon County Council is obliged to provide t by law. Presented by Janette i Fazakarley for the residents, and replied to by Teresa Tomkins for the gypsies.
Tony Slowley 's sister died from sickle cell anaemia. He and another sister have the disease too. There are about 5,000 sufferers in Britain, mainly people of Afro-Caribbean descent. Tony Slowley 's film shows how the black communities of Bristol are striving against what they claim is ignorance, apathy, institutional racism and under-funding of the NHS.
The rape of men by men is widespread but kept hidden. In this film, Martin Dockrell of Survivors, a support group for men who have been sexually abused, breaks the silence surrounding male rape, with the help of men who talk openly for the first time about the fear and humiliation they have experienced.
Landlord John Webb predicts that thousands of pubs will soon disappear. In a desperate bid to survive soaring rents, how long will it be before your local becomes a Karaoke parlour with wall-to-wall fruit machines and expensive beers?
Thai writer Ing K looks at tourism in her native country. She shows what local people really feel about the invasion of foreigners and asks "whose paradise it is anyway?" Some Thais are now campaigning to preserve the few areas of outstanding natural beauty that have not yet been "developed" by the booming tourist industry. They know that Thailand has more to offer than just sun and sex.
Every week thousands of farm animals are transported to Europe for slaughter. In this film, David Wilkins, on behalf of Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, exposes what he sees as the cruel reality of this trade. He produces evidence of the immense suffering to which animals are subjected (many die in transit) and seeks to alert the public to the possibility that they could be subjected to even longer journeys with the introduction of a single European code in 1992.
Tonight's film was made by a group of Untouchables, those at the very bottom of the Indian caste system, suffering misery and humiliation. Most left India for economic reasons and many have achieved material success in this country. Tonight they speak out against attempts of higher caste Indians to impose the caste system here.
Should we remember the Gulf War? The Committee for i Just Peace in the Middle East argues that it has had catastrophic and avoidable consequences for the people ' and environment of the area. i They believe it presages future wars between the rich countries of the northern I hemisphere for the resources i of the poor south.
Tonight the Black Music Industry Association puts the spotlight on the British record business and asks why there is no black British superstar. Jazzie B of Soul II Soul, Caron Wheeler, Omar and Carl McIntosh of Loose Ends give an inside view of the £680 million record industry.
Sheila Awoonor-Renner had to cry alone after her 17-year-old son was killed in a motorway accident on a school trip. She argues that the English have forgotten how to grieve.
A short drama made by a talented group of black actors and former film students. Written by Rodney Charley and directed by Ian Roberts , it combines African storytelling, European fairy tales and gritty street-gang realism centred on a racial attack, with documentary material.
Last September, rioters burned down the youth club on the Meadow Well Estate in North Shields. Three local residents express their hopes, fears and anger now that all they have been left with are "empty promises".
Tonight's programme takes a seasonal swipe at Christmas itself. Liz Righton and her sister Carol Robinson question the false sentiments which engulf everybody at this time.
Mark Fisher, MP, and architect Sir Richard Rogers have written A New London, an analysis of the problems facing the capital city. From the top of a double-decker bus, they identify urban planning faults created by piecemeal development.
On behalf of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer Jocelyn Hay calls on the new government to set up a public inquiry to decide the future of the BBC before the renewal of its charter in 1996. In their programme she and her supporters forcefully defend the licence fee but also argue that the BBC should be far more accountable to licence payers and should not implement its far-reaching proposals for internal change before full public debate.
A disturbing film, made by the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), that highlights the growing number of allegations of serious ill-treatment of detainees at the Royal Ulster Constabulary interrogation centre in Belfast. The CAJ has joined with Amnesty International and the United Nations Committee against Torture to seek greater safeguards to protect both detainees and the reputation of the police.
Britain is one of the biggest importers of Brazilian timber, but in this film, author and environmentalist George Monbiot reveals how consumers in this country may unwittingly be responsible for destroying the rainforest and the lives of the Brazilian Indians.
With fascism on the rise in Germany and France, right-wing extremists in Britain are on the move. However, Anti Fascist Action have been waging a war on the streets. In their film, they show that to win the hearts and minds of young working-class men, traditionally used as footsoldiers by the fascists, they have to earn their respect, which, they believe, takes more than just waving a banner.
Nicola Jennings was adopted as a baby 30 years ago. In this personal film, she challenges the assumptions behind the new trend for so-called "open adoption", which encourages continuing contact between adoptive families and birth families. She puts the case that the silent majority of adopted people like herself who don't wish to search for their birth parents are regarded as "deviant" and not consulted.
Life was sweet for Robert Smith , a secure job at British Aerospace, a nice home. Then he was made redundant, and two years and 500 applications later he remains unemployed, a victim of age discrimination. Philip and Bernice Walker , who made this film, found his transition from managing director to the dole queue almost too great a shock - 3,000 suicides each year are blamed directly on long-term unemployment. His anger made him create the Campaign against Age Discrimination in Employment, and make use of the qualifications and expertise that the captains of industry have been quick to throw aside.
This provocative but entertaining film showcases the rapidly expanding social movement "Afrocentrism". Leo Chester, a rising star of the comedy circuit, explains why people of African descent worldwide are challenging the complacent assumptions which downgrade and dismiss the contribution of Africa to world civilisation. And some British Africans and African Americans air their views on the growth of Afrocentrism. Made by Kenny Bakie of Mwalimu, an African educational group, the title is taken from an old African proverb: "Until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter."
The name of Cowley in Oxford has been linked with the British car industry for most of this century. Oxford car workers have produced some of the most famous names in British cars - from the first bullnose Morris to the Montego. At one time, 26,000 people worked in the plant, but this summer - ; when Rover is due to close the South Works - only 5,000 : people will remain. ! In a city dominated by the dreaming spires of the university, the prospects for those who work on the assembly lines seem bleak. As one local councillor comments, "Unless we put those jobs back, Oxford will be a nice place to visit, a nice place to look round the colleges, but an empty shell for anybody who is not in academia or who is not a tourist." In her film Ann Schofield , a member of the Oxford Motor Industry Research Project, explores the impact of the industry's decline on a community which has spent its life making cars.
Half a million stammerers in the UK need help to overcome their speech problem and "at the moment there are pitifully few places for us to go," says Ron Kennedy who stammers himself. In his film, he features stammerers talking about their lives and the everyday situations that can fill them with dread. For the lucky few, successful therapy is an enormous liberation, and Ron Kennedy wants more courses on offer to stammerers of all ages combined with essential back-up treatment. "In my own case", he says, "I just wanted my children to grow up knowing me as a fluent person."
Many bisexuals encounter hostility not only from straight people but also gays and lesbians. This film from the London Bisexual Group features six people who speak openly about their bisexuality.
Mordechai Vanunu came to Britain six years ago with evidence to support his claim that Israel was secretly producing nuclear weapons. Just before his revelations were published, he was kidnapped by Mossad agents, returned to Israel and sentenced in a secret trial to 18years' solitary confinement. Made by his brother Meir on behalf of the Campaign to Free Vanunu to mark the sixth anniversary of his controversial disclosures, this film tells the full story of an individual whose conscience led him to risk life and freedom for the sake of global security.
Although more than three million Spiritualists regularly attend over 400 churches in the UK, their mediums are still often confused with fortune- tellers, palm-readers and dabblers in the occult. Tonight's film is made by the Spiritualists' Union who believe that theirs is a precious gift which proves the existence of life after death and they are confident that in the future they alone will be responsible for bringing faiths and nations together.
Is insistence on politically correct language a new sensitivity to the power of words to hurt, or the sinister new McCarthyism of which some complain? The Cambridge Union takes over tonight's programme to debate the issue. Ann Leslie of The Daily Mail, argues that "This House abhors the concept of political correctness". Opposing her is feminist and anti-pornography campaigner, Andrea Dworkin. Union President Nick Allen is in the chair.
"You don't have to be thin to win," says Mary Evans Young who founded a group to help women escape the tyranny of weight watching. In her film, she and a few friends celebrate their new-found freedom. A past Slimmer of the Year finalist, a dress designer, a schoolgirl, and a dieter unhappy with her size 12 shape tell their stories. Plus a look at evidence that dieting doesn't work.
In the 1980s every major city saw the rise of huge corporate building complexes, designed to link the finance houses and multinational companies which today form the new global economy. Architects, Designers, Planners for Social Responsibility, an awareness-raising group based in America, examines how cities have been restructured, not for the public's benefit but for powerful corporations.
An Open Space special which follows singer Phil Burdett 's struggle to clinch a record deal. With radio DJ Mary Costello he attempts to show just how much the influence record companies have in deciding which music the public hears. In his film he also reflects on his home town of Basildon. "Every song I've written is haunted by this town," he says.
Tony Elvers is one of the keepers of the Needles Lighthouse off the Isle of Wight which is soon to be automated. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House, responsible for all the lighthouses around the British coast, are nearing the end of a ten-year automation programme, and there are now only three tower rock lights out at sea with keepers living and working on them. In his film, Tony Elvers laments the passing of a way of life that keeps a human presence in some of our most dangerous waters.
Sheldon "Curfew" Thomas decided to make this film after witnessing a shooting at an east London nightclub. His film explores the reasons behind the alarming increase in drugs-related gun violence among Britain's African-Caribbean community. Curfew - a member of the Brother Movement, a group of rap and reggae artists - calls for action to curb this self-destructive black-on-black violence.
In her frank film, Sue Piper of British Naturism challenges the "saucy" images of nudity to reveal the unashamed front of naturism in this country. From the original pioneers of the 1920s to the new wave of urban enthusiasts, naturism is a "back to nature" movement, as much about escaping the constraints of modern life as the clothes which usually accompany it.
The United Nations 'Safe Haven' for the Kurds in Iraq expires at the end of 1992. In his film, exile Hoshmand Othman returns to his native Iraqi Kurdistan to find out how his fellow Kurds are trying to reconstruct their lives after years of brutal repression by Saddam Hussein 's regime. This moving and often painful journey of discovery, explores the fragile democratic state being created and calls for international support for Kurds as a self-governing people.
Rialda Sebek is a Yugoslav journalist living in London who is part Muslim and part Serb. She wishes passionately to remain a Yugoslav. In her film she returns to Belgrade and finds writers and intellectuals who share her disdain for the bloodthirsty rhetoric of the opposing nationalist leaders.
Historically most black people in Britain have voted Labour. Those who support the Conservative party have done so in hushed tones for fear of being called "traitors". In his film, Andrew Scantlebury , one of the growing number of Afro-Caribbeans who are active Conservatives, challenges the notion that the colour of your skin should determine the way you vote. He reveals what it is like to be a black Tory as he confronts the criticisms of friends and family who cannot accept his choice.
Frances Allam was sexually assaulted by another woman - a distressing and humiliating experience made worse by the fact that people's reactions were often prejudiced at a time when she needed understanding. Her film includes testimonies on 'female rape' and on the under-researched area of sexual abuse in lesbian relationships, and on the complexities of childhood sexual abuse when the perpetrator is a woman.
Fishermen are being forced to risk their lives at sea in ever-more dangerous conditions, with little guarantee of a living wage, because of what they regard as the morass of government rules and regulations. Tonight's film, made by the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, follows Paul Jarrett , the Mission Superintendent at Brixham, Devon, working among these men and their families.
Every Saturday, football fans attend their "theatres of dreams". At grounds all over the country they carry with them fond memories of sitting on Dad's shoulders, watching legendary players. But football is being transformed. In his film, Robert Cookson , a lifelong Manchester United supporter, questions what is happening to the modern game and, with the help of fellow fans, asks whether commercialism is killing it.
The public library service grew, in part, out of the temperance movement in the 1830s - an anxiety to provide people with somewhere else to go apart from the pub. Now library opening hours, book-purchase funds and staffing have been drastically cut and privatisation is on the agenda. To make her film Jill Wight , director of the National Library Campaign, has brought together many supporters including Melvyn Bragg , who says: "It's a marvellous system and it's been let slide.... when a society starts to chew off its own best bits then you're in real trouble - and the library service is certainly one of the best bits about this country."
There are currently over 100 prisoners lingering on Death Row in Trinidad. For many, their last hope lies 4,000 miles away in a small courtroom in London where the most senior judges in the English judiciary will hear their cases. With Trinidad and Jamaica about to resume hanging, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will have to deal with an unprecedented number of life and death decisions. In his film, lawyer Bernard Simons examines the effectiveness of this little known court which covers many Commonwealth countries and argues a powerful case for reform to improve the quality of justice.
In his film, Mark Coton, a semi-professional gambler and founder of the National Association for the Protection of Punters, backs the call for change. As he explores the world of betting shops and bookies, Coton finds some who have won their bet but lost the pay-out in a system that's stacked against them.
The Duke of Westminster may be best known for his urban interests, but his heart is rooted in the countryside. Last year he published a report, The Problems in Rural Areas, which gathered much support among country people, but was ignored elsewhere. In this film, he expresses his concerns for the future of rural communities as farmers are driven off the land and family farms are in decline. With four farmers a week committing suicide, rural life is far from the idyll it can seem to outsiders.
Everyone has memories of school meals, but few realise how much that great institution in British life has been reduced since the 1970s. Virginia Branney from the National Union of Public Employees presents this appeal for the preservation and improvement of school dinners, using archive film, readings and poems.
A recent Lloyd's Register report claimed ferry travel wasoneofthemost dangerous forms of public transport, with one collision expected each year, and a capsize every five years. Peter Aengenheister , who uses the ferry to visit his family in Germany, asks what people are letting themselves in for.
An Open Space special which explores the murky background to the notorious "ice-cream wars" in Glasgow which reached a tragic climax nine years ago when a family of six were burned to death. It seemed that justice had been done when Joseph Steele and Thomas Campbell were given life sentences. Both men, however, have protested their innocence, and this film looks at the reasons why family and friends are so determined to show that a miscarriage of justice has taken place.
For three months, the sleepy calm of Coppice Wood Lodge home for the elderly was shattered by Spare Tyre theatre company's Clair Chapman and Harriet Powell. With four young actors they worked with 15 residents to write, rehearse and perform a musical play. The rehearsals contain moments of pure joy, sadness and confusion.
The barber shop is an important part of the black community, a meeting point and a place for education and creativity. This film from 29-year-old barber Julian Parry is a celebration of the black barber shop and an exploration of its history and culture.
"There's no better feeling at the end of a hot, sticky day, than to dive into an open-air pool and swim along looking up at the little clouds and the birds flying overhead." So says Nicky Cowan in praise of the lido, now a threatened species.
"Before I entered, having never been near an enclosed convent, I fancied nuns never smiled, never washed, never ran; I didn't know quite what they did all day except pray." The Poor Clare Colettines in north Wales have taken vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and enclosure. In their film, the sisters show how life in an enclosed order can be fulfilling.
"Everythingyou think you know about pornography is wrong, says Isabel Koprowski. "A tidal wave of misinformation on the subject has swamped us." Koprowski, who has been managing editor of Forum and Penthouse, and who launched Women Only, a sex magazine catering forwomen, is a member of Feminists against Censorship. In her film for Open Space she argues that there is a demand for pornography from women as well as men, that Britain's obscenity laws are both unhealthy and sexist, and that legal reform would ease oppression and bring social benefits.
As the TUC celebrates its 125th anniversary, it will also be pondering the events of the past 14 years during which the Conservatives have passed a succession of laws weakening or removing trade union rights. In Sheffield Doug Low and Bill McDonnell trace the effects of what they see as a return to Victorian values. During these 14 years, they claim, Sheffield has been transformed from a prosperous city with a skilled, well-paid, unionised workforce into a low-skilled, low-paid, poorly unionised area, with unemployment growing from 11, 000 to 48,000. Their argument is that in such a situation a strong trade union movement is more necessary than ever. Prunella Scales , Timothy West and Eric Richard contribute readings from the archives of the trade union movement.
Tattoos have often been seen as aggressive, threatening symbols of male sexuality. But for the people who adorn their bodies with them they are living art. Acclaimed tattoo artist Lal Hardy tells how this ancient art form has developed.
Young British Muslim Saqib Qureshi investigates the rise of new forms of Islamic activity in Britain. He looks at how groups who are active in "Dawaah" - calling on people to accept Islam - are growing in strength, fuelled by a sense of grievance at western hostility to their faith.
Michael Palin , president of the pressure group Transport 2000, argues in this Open Space special that we must completely rethink our approach to transport, since the present trend for more and more cars and roads cannot continue. "The trouble is that we have got so used to having cars we can't imagine doing without them or even using them less," he says. "And it is increasingly difficult to manage without. As more people have got cars, public transport has been run down and walking and cycling have become more dangerous." And the fact is that a third of British households, despite the relentless increase in cars, are still totally dependent on those increasingly hazardous ways of getting about or on deteriorating public transport. Government policy is for the current trend to continue, but increased traffic adversely affects the environment, our communities and our health. In tonight's film Palin presents the alternative, and says that time is running out.
Britain has two million acres of forest available for everyone's enjoyment. With the government considering privatising some of them, Patricia Whelan's film Here Comes the Chopper puts the case for keeping Britain's woodlands open to its "owners", the public. Whelan calls in one of the largest private forest owners in Britain, Sir Marcus Worsley , to support her argument. Although the subject is serious, her film includes poetry and music about trees giving it an almost lyrical feel. Hers is the first of six programmes made by members of the public on subjects they feel particularly strongly about, from hunting to free festivals.
This film presenting the case for fox-hunting is made by Penny Mortimer, Secretary of the Leave Country Sports Alone campaign. She chronicles the fears of hunters, anglers and conservationists about what a ban on hunting would mean for the British countryside.
Attempting to alleviate housing shortage on a national level, the Empty Homes Agency has housed 2,000 people since its launch. But the number of empty properties is increasing and ex-housing officer Bob Lawrence feels the public has a right to know about this colossal waste.
Every day people risk their lives fighting to protect the environment, and every year some of them are acknowledged by the United Nations Global 500 Awards. To mark the London award ceremony on 3 June, World Environment Day, tonight's film profiles four winners, from Pakistan, Norway, Trinidad and Mexico. Introduced by Canadian teenager Severn Cullis-Suzuki, a previous Youth Award winner.
The Welfare State is a monstrous nanny, strangling the economy and crushing self-reliance - that is the argument in tonight's film from David Marsland , one of the authors of a recent report from the Adam Smith Institute - an influential think-tank - called The End of the Welfare State.
Later this year, government legislation will come into effect that will outlaw many so-called "raves". But are these free festivals and parties really that dangerous? In this film, the Advance Party seeks to put the record straight, arguing that as a form of cultural expression, the right to party goes back thousands of years.
Experts now believe that inactivity is as dangerous as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, so it is a disturbing thought that today's children use up 25 per cent fewer calories than they did in the 1930s. If their lifestyle isn't changed, these couch potato kids will be susceptible to heart attacks at an early age and may cause a major national health crisis in years to come.
Britain is not just a nation of shopkeepers but a nation of shoppers. Yet many of us no longer have the choice of shopping in a town centre. The growth in out-of-town superstores, warehouse clubs and discounters has meant that town centres are dying. In this film, Gloucester shopkeeper Roger Ellinor looks at the importance of the traditional high street, and compares Britain with France, where the traditions of the high street are kept alive.
Baby George Jackson wasjust one month old when he died, still waiting for the donation of a heart that would save his life. In this moving and enlightening film George's parents, Francis and Sharon Jackson , examine the British transplant system that they feel failed them and their son. They meet other parents, and talk to the experts, politicians and the medical ethical establishment that lays down the rules.Francis and Sharon believe that it is vital for the policy on organ donation to be changed. They say that if organs were automatically available, unless the patient carried a card forbidding it, countless lives would be saved. Perhaps even baby George would have lived.
"All the programmes I've ever seen on male prostitution try to present people press-ganged into the business and in desperate situations. While I don't want to deny that exists, it's not the whole story. It certainly hasn't been my story." Cambridge graduate John Bratherton has chosen to work as a gay male prostitute for the last seven years. In his film, male prostitutes and clients agree that society presents all prostitution in a sinister light. He challenges the wisdom of generalising about such a complex subject and maintains that prostitution can be a positive and enjoyable choice.
Drugs scandals make front page headlines almost as often as great sporting victories, with the sports authorities becoming obsessed with catching those they consider as cheats. In the first of a new run of the access documentary series, Professor Ellis Cashmore argues that today's rules are redundant and misleading. He asserts that it should be left to individuals whether or not they take drugs. He challenges assumptions that drugs enhance performance or damage health and points out that the increased commercialisation of sport encourages drug use.
In this age of the computer, handwriting is enjoying a surprising renaissance, with a growing recognition of its significance as a projection of the individual. Presenter Humphrey Lyttelton combines his talents as a renowned jazztrumpeterand band leaderwith a private passion for handwriting.
Second World War veteran Gerald Fox describes how he and countless others continue to suffer for their country five decades later. To the medical profession, their condition is known as post-traumatic stress disorder; for sufferers, it means a constant struggle with memories of the past. Tonight's Open Space looks at the trauma still suffered by many of those who served in the war, powerfully evokingthe twilight world of those who have repeatedly to relive terrible eventsfrom the past.
Two larger-than-life sisters and a 23-year-old man have done what everyone said was impossible. In just four years Janet Newman , Mary Asprey and Chris Dray have established a missing persons charity that has had the world beating a path to their door. They have helped everyone from families who have lost a loved one to the FBI. They take 30,000 cases a year and solve 70 percent. How do they do it and why? This film follows them as they use the latest technology, including image manipulation, to re-create the faces of missing children as they age.
Featuring shed, compost heap, shovel, seed and home freezer, David Crouch 's film digs below the topsoil in the world of allotments. There's more to the mighty allotment than meets the eye. Owners are regarded as subversive by some local authorities and town planners and councils all over Britain are selling allotment land: 40,000 of them are facing extinction. Now a new fighting breed of allotment owner has dug in, and in this film they sling some mud.
Keith Tait, a former head teacher, explains how he was overloaded with work and forced into premature retirement suffering from stress. He asks why we have become a nation of workaholics and attempts to discover the extent of the problem.
Millions of people in the UK suffer the devastating effects of living with a skin disease - ranging from being stared and pointed at, to family break-up. For many, long-term psychological damage or even suicide can result. Ashley Medicks , a suffererfor 24 years, has made this programme to bring about a positive change in public attitude. He travels to the Dead Sea to meet fellow sufferers and to explore the beneficial psychological effect of being among fellow sufferers. His film delves deep beneath the epidermis and exposes the reality of living with a skin condition.
Sheila McKecknie as she leaves Shelter, the national campaign for the homeless, after ten years as director. She recalls her unrelenting attack on successive governments, not so much for their housing policy as for the absence of one. "Instead of co-ordinated policies to ensure that everybody has a home, we have seen a narrow-minded obsession with home ownership and a series of short-term fig leaf initiatives which obscure the consequences." Throughout her time, Sheila McKecknie has made sure that the big issue of homelessness remained high on the public agenda; true to form, she uses her last television appearance as Director of Shelter to keep it there.
Research shows there is still much ignorance about the fate of the Jews during the Second World War. The Nazi regime represented an assault not only on the Jews but also on anyone who did not fit the Nazis' racial blueprint. In the US there are over 100 Holocaust museums and research centres. In Britain, despite our unique role in defeating Nazism, there is none. Dr David Cesarani asks whether, at a time when racism, intolerance and fascism are again on the rise, we can afford not to have a Holocaust museum in Britain.
Former Labour leader Michael Foot and his wife Jill Craigie were once regular visitors to the former Yugoslavia. In this documentary, made with the help of their grandson, they call on the leaders of Europe to come to the aid of the stricken country.
Author and academic Alan Sinfield takes a witty and provocative look at Wilde's influence on the 20th century, and argues that the legacy of Wilde is not always helpful to homosexuals. Sinfield recalls that when he was at school, boys who showed interest in other boys were labelled "Oscars". He contends that despite Wilde's trial and what some would call his martyrdom, the lessons learnt have not necessarily made life any easier for gay people. Yet Julian Clary suggests that Wilde opened doors for camp comics such as himself: "He used to say nothing is in bad taste as long as it's funny - which is something I've often quoted when I'm asked about my boundaries of good and bad taste." Other contributors include drag artist Dave Lynn and Chris Smith, MP.
There are those who do not fit comfortably into Britain's collective Second World War memory. As VE Day nears, this programme, made with some of the Second World War's hard-line conscientious objectors, tells of theirexperiences during the war and argues not only that the warwas wrong, but that it was avoidable and should never have been allowed to happen.