8 episodes · 11th June 1979
Every year, over 10,000 prisoners in jails all over the country anxiously await the result of their parole petitions. But no science governs the decision which can reduce the period of the sentence. For the first time four prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs have been allowed to talk of their crimes. their families, and their hopes and fears as they wait to hear whether they will be granted parole. They are: PETER: serving four years for arson: JOHN: six years for conspiracy to rob; AMIN: four years for his involvement in importing cannabis: DUNCAN: five years for a sexual assault on a 12-year-old boy.
24-year-old George Roberts feels that he is a woman, and he wants to have sex reassignment surgery. Before the National Health Service will approve the surgical procedures, they refer him to a psychiatrist in the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital. The psychiatrist tells George that he must first live as a woman for one year. George throws away his men's clothing, informs his employer, and (per the hospital's requirements) finds a new flat nearer to the clinic.
The blizzard that engulfed the South West of England in February 1978 was the worst in living memory on parts of Exmoor. Marooned and alone hill-farmers searched frantically for their flocks buried under tons of snow. This film begins as farmer Tony Takle is digging his sheep from huge snowdrifts. Some are dead, some alive, and some moribund. Worse follows as his ewes, all of them in lamb, abort, or themselves die, enfeebled by their ordeal. But the cycle of the season brings relief. A flock that was all but destroyed is saved. But it has taken one year of unremitting toil to undo the work of one terrible night.
HMS Guernsey is a policewoman of the sea. The laws she enforces define the dos and don'ts of fishing. Her beat is three-quarter-million square miles of coastal water. The trawler skippers she orders to accompany her to the nearest port appear before magistrates with the power to fine up to £50,000, and confiscate the catch and the nets - crippling blows to the master of the Jose Caesareo and the master of the Candida Viera , whose stories are the subject of this film. Both were caught with their nets down inside Britain's 200-mile limit. Both faced bankruptcy and ruin. But for the men who sail the Fishery Protection Vessels it was a success, an essential demonstration that valuable fish stocks must be protected and conserved, so that when finally the argument over Britain's fishing limits is settled, there will at least be something within those limits left to catch.
Timothy Jones is a child. When the strain of looking after him began to affect his parents' marriage, Mr and Mrs Jones agreed that it would be best if he were sent away from Solihull into a private residential home in the country. The move was a success. But four years later, Solihull Social Services Department had vacancies for the mentally handicapped at its own modern day-care centre, and it was costing Solihull's ratepayers ã5,000 a year to keep Timmy in the country. What was more logical than to bring the boy nearer home. and ease the borough's financial burden? It was not a form of logic that convinced the Joneses. They strenuously resisted all arguments. So the battle lines were drawn up, and this film is an account of how two determined lay-people took on a whole department of experts.
After the failure of the plot to blow Adolf Hitler to pieces as he studied his campaigns in the Wolf's Lair on 20th July 1944, the conspirators were rounded up, put on trial and hanged. To savour his revenge at leisure, Hitler ordered the trials and death throes of his enemies to be filmed. Four hours of Hitler's film have been tracked down, and from it emerges a unique and bizarre parody of justice, as the traitors to the Third Reich are hounded to their death. Hitler's avenging prosecutor is Roland Freisler, a perverted star in a sadistic screen role that he knew would please the Führer as he watched these pictures in his cinema in the Wolf's Lair.
The oil bonanza, which breathed life into the nation's economy, also spelled death to many young men who worked under the icy waters of the North Sea. constructing and maintaining the oil-rigs. This toll of diving tragedies prompted the Government to set up schools training divers up to a recognised standard. One such is Fort Bovisand, Plymouth. In this film, the progress is charted of 16 would-be divers, who embark on a three-month course that will equip them for work on the rigs. Some learn quickly that they are ill-suited. Under stress physical disabilities come to light, as do mental shortcomings: indiscipline. inattention, claustrophobia and panic. One by one the 16 are eliminated, and at the end very few graduate to their cold, dark, dirty, difficult. dangerous - but highly-paid - profession.
When the converted Greenpeace trawler sailed out into the North Sea in June this year bound for Iceland, the eyes of all who cared for the preservation of the whale Were on her. For the purpose of this voyage was to touch the conscience of the world and its whaling nations on the eve of the annual conference of the International Whaling Commission. This film is a record of the clashes On Iceland, as Rainbow Warrior tried in vain to stop the carnage - falling foul of Icelandic gun-boats and Icelandic law courts. But the voyage seemed to have worked. After years of siding with the whalers, Iceland's crucial vote helped tilt the balance at the rwc. A ban on whaling for most species for an indefinite period was agreed. But was this a success? A closer look at the small print of the agreement shows that Iceland can continue her killing operation.
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