Season 2

1969 · 45 episodes

Episodes

1Twice As Fast: The ConcordeIf Concorde succeeds, her passengers will be hurled across the oceans at twice the height and twice the speed of today's jet travellers. In a few weeks her make-or-break test flights will begin. They will take up to three years to complete. But for the last ten years some of the best brain-power-and a lot of money-has been ploughed by Britain and France into the making of the Concorde. Tonight the planemakers tell their story of the race to be firs. with a supersonic transport-the story of the struggles, the promise, and the possible rewards.
2Suicide Of A Nation: Germany Before HitlerAn impression of the years which began with the fall of the Kaiser and ended with Hitler's appointment as Chancellor. They are remembered now as the Golden Twenties, a time of change and experiment, of horror films and jazz, of provocative art and spectacular night life, of Hindenburg and the men who came to Weimar fifty years ago to inaugurate Germany's first experiment in democracy. But they were also the years which saw the birth of a new German army and the reorganisation of industry, the growth of new political parties and the economic disaster of the World Slump.
3Towards Tomorrow – There it is… where it isYour future is being created now -for better or for worse? THERE IT IS ... WHERE IT IS 100,000-1: according to some metal men those are the odds against finding a new metal mine. But unless we begin finding unprecedented amounts of minerals very soon, by the turn of the century industry could grind to a halt for lack of raw materials. The odds have got to be shortened -- not only by prospecting every square yard of the earth but by exploring the deepest parts of the oceans, possibly even the moon. The only hope is that technology, which created the problem of exploding metal consumption, will also create the means to solve it -- by providing new tools to tip the balance in the prospector's favour.
4Winter In Moscow (1)The story of a lost dream A further chapter in Malcolm Muggeridge 's television autobiography In 1932 Malcolm Muggeridge went to Moscow as correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. As a young and ardent Socialist he regarded it as an assignment to Utopia. Instead of the perfect society he found chicanery, brutality, and dictatorship; art, architecture, literature, and the cinema-all toeing the Party line; foreign journalists and gullible tourists from the Western intelligentsia all joining in fatuous praise of a system which, by means of secret police, show trials, and enforced famine, was taking millions of Soviet lives. For Malcolm Muggeridge it was indeed the end of a dream and the disillusionment marked a turning point in his life.
5Our Own Correspondent (2)A further chapter in Malcolm Muggeridge 's television autobiography Twenty years ago during the administration of Harry Truman , Malcolm Muggeridge worked in the United States as the Washington correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph. After two years at the centre of the Western political world he came to the conclusion that he would rather be on the periphery, and left with relief. Last year Muggeridge returned to Washington to retread his old paths, to visit again the capital ' whose only industry is government and whose only output is words,' and to see whether his reactions remained the same combination of bemusement and foreboding. This film records these reactions.
6The Game That Got AwayA film about a sport that shows up a divided country A portrait of Rugby League, how it fell foul of the Rugby Union and broke away ... How northern working men got their hands on a Public School game and turned it inside out ... How one sport did not bring people closer together. Rugby Union and Rugby League have a common parent. But no brotherly love is lost between them. Rugby Union is amateur, middle class, and gentlemanly; Rugby League is professional, working class, not gentle, but very manly.
7The Epic That Never WasIn 1937 Sir Alexander Korda embarked on a film epic that was to overshadow all others and enshrine him as saviour of the British film industry. Robert Graves's classics, "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" told the story of an apparently imbecilic cripple who overthrew Caligula to become Emperor of Rome. Korda had a star-laden cast lined up: Charles Laughton, Emlyn Williams, Merle Oberon, and Flora Robson, and the legendary Josef von Sternberg was engaged as director. After a month's shooting—a month fraught with difficulties, according to von Sternberg—Merle Oberon was in a car crash and the entire project was shelved. It was not until 28 years later that BBC-TV producer Bill Duncalf came across some tins of film in the Denham studio vaults and realised that they comprised a unique document. The rescued rushes were edited, and together with filmed interviews with people who remembered working on the production, were made into an intriguing documentary.
8Matters Of Life And DeathChristopher Brasher investigates some of the terrifying problems-moral, legal, economic, which have been brought about by new advances in medicine. We hear much about the ethical problem of heart transplants, about fertilising a human egg in a test-tube, but these are the problems of experimental medicine. There is only the remotest chance that they will affect us or the doctors who attend us. But there are many other problems, also brought about by new medical techniques, which do affect us today, and which involve our doctors in the most vital of all decisions-the quality of the life which they can give us.
9The Thin Red LineThe story of THE ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS They caught the public imagination under ' Mad Mitch' when they recaptured the Crater district of Aden. But they have been famous for much longer than that. It was they who withstood the charge of the Russian cavalry at Balaclava-and became a legend. At Lucknow they won six V.C.s before breakfast. The Argylls have always been in the news, stirring up hot passions. They are the modern descendants of the Campbellsâ€” once the most hated clan in the Highlands. As Colin Mitchell says in tonight's film, it was a detachment of the Argyll Militia that carried out the treacherous massacre at Glencoe. Since the war they have seen more active service than any other regiment in the British Army. Now they are faced with the axe; and more than a million people have signed a petition to ' Save the Argylls.' What is this controversial regiment really like? And does the country need them any more?
10The Killing GameBig game hunting in Kenya is sport in luxurious style. A hunting safari is an impressive venture -highly organised, with big trucks to carry the stores and every possible comfort. The sport of hunting is often misunderstood by people who only read about it. The actual tracking, the long hours spent in a hide, getting up before dawn to look for animal tracks; all these are the necessary prelude to the hunt for a particular animal. There are no close seasons for game hunting in Kenya. The country is divided into hunting blocks and hunting areas, and the number of animals being shot for trophies is controlled by bookings.
11Towards Tomorrow – 2001: An Earth Prophecy"Towards Tomorrow: 2001: An Earth Prophecy" is a 1969 television documentary episode from the series Tuesday's Documentary that explores futuristic ideas, ecological predictions, and human destiny as the year 2001 approached.
12Where Do We Go From Here?A film about the travelling people of Britain gypsies-tinkers-nomads-potters The wanderers of our roads and lanes talk about their lives, their homes, their work, and their problem-us. They first came here in 1400. Many of their ways of life survive. How have they kept their independence? Can they go on doing so? Where do they go from here?
13The Trail BlazersThis film tells the story of the struggle to conquer the Atlantic Ocean, always the most challenging, and today the greatest, of all the world's air routes.
14The Diamond WorldFor two-and-a-half-thousand years diamonds have been man's most coveted possession. Once they blazed in triumph from the crowns of Kings and Emperors. Today they are any girl's ' best friend' and diamond mining just another large-scale industrial process; yet the magic of diamonds remains. What lies behind this magic is the theme of The Diamond World.
15So You Think You Know About Children?How good a parent are you? Do you know the laws-old and new -governing you and your child? How far are you answerable, and how far is the State, for his health, safety, education, behaviour, hours of work? Cliff Michelmore and Magnus Magnusson give you the chance to check your knowledge of the rights and duties of parents; and of facts about children, from toddlers to teenagers.
16Towards Tomorrow – A Good and Useful LifeThe future is being created now -for better or for worse A GOOD AND USEFUL LIFE? A guy who can't fit into society and steals - you lock up in prison. Kind of forget him until he steals again. Then you lock him up again. A PRISONER At a time when our prisons are overcrowded and longer and longer sentences are being imposed Tony Parker examines the effect of imprisonment on men now, and what this means for the future. The purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life. THE PRISON RULES: RULE 1 What sort of life do prisoners lead inside? How does imprisonment change them - does it in fact help them to lead a good and useful life? First-hand evidence from former prisoners, prison officers, a prison Governor, and others concerned with the treatment of offenders.
17Race You To The TopTonight the winners of the DAILY MAIL TRANSATLANTIC AIR RACE will collect over £ 60,000 in prize-money. Are there any other rewards? Will the race make people more air-minded? Will it sell more British aircraft in the United States? Will it prove to be the aviation event of the year? The race was for the fastest or most enterprising crossing of the Atlantic by air between the top of the G.P.O. Tower in London and the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. More than 300 people tried to win it in every kind of plane from supersonic jets and V.C.lOs to a Tiger Moth. It lasted a week and ended in New York in the early hours of yesterday morning. This is the story of the race as it happened. An eye-witness account by BBC correspondents and cameramen on both sides of the Atlantic and in flight above it.
18Battle For CassinoThe Battle for Cassino is a 1969 BBC historical documentary directed by Peter Batty that details the intense World War II military campaign to break through the German Gustav Line in Italy.
19Towards Tomorrow – Learning to LiveThe future is being created now -for better or for worse LEARNING TO LIVE The people of the twenty-first century are being fashioned now in our primary schools. Our boys and girls will have to live with the tempestuous uncertainties foretold for their world. They will have to learn how to do so-and that begins at school. What is going on in the classroom? Is progressive teaching a menace-or can it produce men and women better able to control and live within their society? This programme goes to the heart of this argument, which is about how children learn, and how parents and teachers are helping them in our primary schools. It is solely concerned with State primary schools because that is where the real educational revolution is happening.
20The Revolution Will Not Now Take PlaceRobert Conquest tells the story of fifty violent years of Communism in Europe and its failure to achieve its world-wide aims Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO In the summer of 1919 Lenin and his fellow revolutionaries were confident that Communism would quickly sweep across Europe and then conquer the world. In the summer of 1969 the Communist parties of Europe have been called to Moscow to discuss such fundamental problems as Soviet repression of Czechoslovakia and the challenge of Maoist China. The predicted world revolution has not occurred. The Communist movement itself has split into factions. Where is it likely to go from here?
21The Northern Lights - For the Safety Of AllThere are seventy-two manned lighthouses around the Scottish coast and it takes a vast and complex organisation to administer them. The isolated rock stations are serviced by four ships. These ships are crewed by seamen who know every rock in the gullies which are the hazardous landing places. This documentary is a story of storm and danger-and a story of lonely living.
22Our Man AnywhereA profile of MALCOLM MacDONALD He has described himself, jokingly, as 'an Afro-Asian with a lot of Scottish blood.' A friend of Nehru, Chou En- Lai, and Kenyatta, and adopted son of a Dyak chief; a connoisseur, photographer, author, and humorist. He's the son of Britain's first Labour Prime Minister, and was in the Cabinet himself at the age of thirty-three. After more than twenty-five years' service in different parts of the Commonwealth, he's now due to retire. Tonight's film profile of Britain's most versatile Commonwealth diplomat marks this year's Commonwealth Day. With contributions from Mrs. Pandit Sir Alec Douglas-Home, M.P. Produced by JEREMY Murray-Brown
23Hypnosis And MindIs There a Ghost in the Machine? A doctor, in a now classic case, cures an apparently incurable disease simply by talking to his patient-working on his mind under hypnosis. A State Registered Nurse smiles and feels absolutely no pain as two pins ease through her forearm. Even the brain reacts to the unreal world of hypnotically induced hallucinations-as if they were real. Some scientists suspect one mind can communicate with another-by telepathy. Police testify tint a man locates missing persons for them by extra-sensory perception. But how valid is this? These examples, if true, pose problems that cannot yet be answered in physical terms. They appear to be related to what we call 'mind.' But we cannot define mind or prove its existence. This programme looks at the intriguing evidence and asks: is some of this mind over matter? And if so-what is mind?
24In Case of FireIn Case of Fire is a 1969 BBC television documentary focusing on British firefighters, featuring training drills at facilities like the Southwark Training Centre
25Out Of This WorldThe extraordinary story behind the American bid to land man on the moon. Dr. Wernher Von Braun designed the infamous German V-2: today, a dynamic fifty-seven-year-old American citizen, he heads the team that built the giant moon rocket, the Saturn V. For him ' it all started with the moon.' This film tells the epic and highly spectacular story of how his pre-war dreams have been turned into reality; it also reveals projects for future interplanetary travel using nuclear and electric propulsion.
26The Flight Deck StoryThe Flight Deck Story is a 1969 short documentary film that explores the rich history and operations of aircraft carriers
27A Bit Of An ExperienceA film by MICHAEL LATHAM and GORDON THOMAS It is two years since this award-winning documentary was first shown. Now the end of the story can be told. On the operating table lies a young mother. Round her the surgeon and his team gather to start one of the most difficult operations. Nobody knows what the outcome will be. This remarkable film tells how Heather Kent and her husband coped with this sudden crisis in their lives. As Heather calmly departed for hospital they both knew that it might be the end of their life together.
28JumboIn just four months, the world's first jumbo jet goes into regular service over the Atlantic. Already 200 have been ordered by the world's airlines. Each is designed to carry nearly 500 passengers. The jumbo has been called a 'pilot's dream'. Will it also be an airport's nightmare? By next year, half a dozen of the giants may be queuing at peak hours to disgorge their passengers at London Airport. Round the world, airports face their biggest jam in history. Jumbo jets will revolutionise airport design. But they may also speed up other travel developments, with far-reaching effects on the design and peace of our cities. Bigger planes still are on the way. How many is too many in an aeroplane? Produced by Michael Weigall.
29In The Name Of FranceFrom Defeat to Resistance 1940-44 In 1940 France, humiliatingly defeated, signed a separate peace treaty with the Germans. The French prime minister Marshal Petain , the hero of Verdun, went to shake hands with the conqueror Adolf Hitler. And so the terrible abasement of collaboration began. Five years later, in 1945, France took her place as an equal partner among the victorious Allied powers at the end of World War II. The honour of France, so tarnished in 1940, had been saved by the Resistance, the men and women who fought on after defeat. In the Name of France is the story of these heroic men and women and of the events which propelled them to resistance. It is about those who saved France's name, and who often died a secret and unlovely death, anonymous and alone.
30Munich 1938Second World War could well have started a year earlier than it did-not on September 3, 1939, but in the last week of September 1938. Then the British Prime Minister of the day, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Germany for a final attempt to reach a settlement with Hitler in the dispute over Nazi Germany's demands on Czechoslovakia. They met in a city which has become a symbol of Britain's pre-war policy of appeasing the dictators-Munich. tells the dramatic story of this crisis of peace or war. Among those taking pa.rt are Sir Alec Douglas-Home , M.P. (then Chamberlain's Parliamentary Private Secretary) and Dr. Paul Schmidt (Hitler's interpreter).
31The Story Of Fighting Poland' FOR OUR FREEDOM AND YOURS ' A film about the romantic and tragic history of the country whose invasion thirty years ago this week marked the beginning of the Second World War. Think, think of us, Poland of mine, when we shall be already gone! Have we not made of your name a prayer that weeps and a thunder that lightens?
32The Child ExpertsCan a mother's mental state influence her unborn baby? Should a son be circumcised? Is it possible to assess the intelligence of a 6-month-old baby? In this programme which deals with the important first five years of a normal child's life Dr. Stephen Black questions A HARLEY STREET PAEDIATRICIAN whose work includes much more than the mere treatment of childhood illnesses DRS JOHN AND ELIZABETH NEWSON , Social Psychologists from Nottingham University. They are making a continuing study of how 700 Nottingham families really bring up their children DR COLIN HINDLEY , a Medical Psychologist at the London University Centre for the Study of Human Development. He studies growth of intelligence in children from the age of three months A SCOTTISH CHILD PSYCHIATRIST who is Consultant at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. He believes parents would be shocked if they knew what goes on in their child's mind
33SeawaysA film about three ships - Naval frigate, container ship, sailing barge - and the men who live and work in them by PHILIP DONNELLAN Working on the sea is a dangerous trade, a job with special risks, needs, obligations. At sea, the Captain is king, priest and lawyer in one. By tradition the crew are ' scum, a parcel of villains,' living hard at one end of the ship while the officers luxuriate at the other. What is the reality? What is life aboard ship like today? How do Captains and crews see their relationship? Above all, how much do we know or care about the sea, and the men who sail on it?
34Gandhi's IndiaTonight's film tells the story of Gandhi's life, in this centenary year of his birth, his long struggle against British rule in India and the tragedies that surrounded the final granting of Independence in 1947. Among those taking part are LORD mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, PADDY QUINN , Gandhi's gaoler on three occasions, and many of his colleagues, including the English Quaker, DONALD GROOM Gandhi's other struggle was against the inequalities and injustices of Indian society itself. How far do his ideals influence India today? Is non-violent social change still possible in India? A Western economist, DR E. F. Schumacher , examines the practicality of Gandhi's belief in a decentralised village society. What was his attitude to science and technology?
35The Colour LineA film about the dilemma of South Africans neither white nor black. South Africa's face to the world is white, backed by a sea of blacks. But the real situation is much more complicated, the colour lines, drawn by law through the country's 19-million inhabitants, isolate two million people under the classification' Coloured They are above the blacks and below the whites in the social hierarchy of apartheid. Many of them are the legacy of three centuries of what would now be illicit sexual pleasure - across the colour line. Hugh Burnett has been back to South Africa to make this third film on the Republic's race policies. Tonight's documentary looks at the blurred edge of the colour line where things are not as black and white as they might seem to the outside world.
36Remember, Remember.... the fifth of NovemberGunpowder, Treason, and Plot asks why should we remember? And, more important still, how many needless accidents does it cause each year? No one knows the real facts about what happened on that first gunpowder night under the House of Commons 350 years ago. But the facts are clear as far as the casualty departments of our hospitals are concerned. Fireworks are an annual hazard which cripple and scar thousands of children. Millions get pleasure and amusement from firework displays, but we are still one of the few countries left that sell fireworks to children. The law says that they must be over 13 before they can buy - but those badly burned are frequently much younger. Man Alive last year sent out HAROLD WILLIAMSON as Well as JEANNE LA CHARD and JOHN PERCIVAL during the Guy Fawkes celebrations to bring back a disturbing film report about the cost of 5 November. This year the programme is shown again - in time, perhaps, to be a warning.
37Love Of A KindA film by Lord Snowdon and Derek Hart Why do you keep a pet? What do you demand from your dog, your cat, your budgie in return for feeding it and teaching it to be clean about the house? Is it companionship you want? Do you keep a dog to protect you? Is the bird you keep behind bars simply a living ornament or an essential member of the household just like one of the family? The relationships between human beings and animals, particularly domestic animals, are sometimes simple. But often they are as complicated as the relationships that exist between people themselves. Executive producer MICHAEL LATHAM
38Engines Must Not Enter The Potato SidingA film about railways and railwaymen. 'I was one of those youngsters who felt I'd like to play with toy trains and I've continued playing with them ever since. You know the old saying that you get sawdust in your veins when you are working on a circus - it's the same for the railway.' - A passenger-train guard. There are 280,000 railwaymen in Great Britain. This film looks at a handful of these men - men who work or used to work on two lines in the north of England: the former Great Central route from Sheffield to Manchester, via the notorious Woodhead tunnel (a recent BBC2 play Men of Iron retold the story of its building), and the former Midland route from Birmingham to Sheffield via Derby and Ambergate. They are men who have railways in the blood and bone and who look at their changing industry with affection, humour and, occasionally, dismay. Narrated by Roger Snowdon, commentary written by Terry Coleman & produced by Malcolm Brown.
39Tokyo - The 51st VolcanoThere are 50 active volcanoes in Japan, and this bubbling, sprawling molten place sometimes feels like the 51st.' Twice in 30 years Tokyo has been destroyed. Today it is the world's biggest city - with problems to match. , By day, a planner's nightmare of smog, sewage and student violence. By night, a vast pleasure palace of lurid fantasy. And everywhere a feeling that men and women are no longer being drawn willingly towards the city. They are being sucked in as if the city itself had an appetite, and will gorge itself on people until it finally erupts once more. Narrator Ian Holm Written and directed by CHRISTOPHER RALLING
40The Land Of IrelandA film about what is happening in the rural western half of the Republic of Ireland today, nearly half a century after the landlords left. With independence came the kind of peasant society the Irish had desired through the centuries of occupation. Men worked their own small plots of land, women cared for large families, the priest sorted out the complications of this world and the next. But the world was moving on, in the United States, in Britain and in recent years up the road in Dublin. People everywhere were earning more. The emigrants came back on holiday first in better suits, then in bigger cars. A sense of having missed out turned to discontent and discontent to 'despair. Tonight's documentary looks at the struggle to save western Ireland, a struggle which is the more exciting because it is so directly against the modern current. Commentary spoken by DEREK HART
41StampedeFor one week every year the Canadian Mid-West town of Calgary erupts with the noise and excitement of the world's biggest rodeo. A million visitors pack the town to see leading cowboys of the professional rodeo circuit compete for prize money of well over$100,000. This film records some of that struggle in the summer of 1969. Commentary by Gerald Priestland Produced by CHARLES DENTON
42Strangers In A TownA personal impression of industrial Wolverhampton by Philip Donnellan On the top of a hill in the middle of England a town of 265,000 people. The western houses drain into the Severn and the Atlantic, the eastern into the North Sea via the Trent. A split-personality town: half agriculture, half heavy industry. With a reputation for toughness, craftsmanship and colour prejudice. Right or wrong? There are 22,000 coloured immigrants in Wolverhampton now but strangers - from Ireland, Wales. France, Poland, Australia-have been flowing in for 150 years. Where are they now?
43The English Village Is Alive And Well ...For years now, people have been reporting the death-throes of the English village - dying crafts, shrinking population, loss of amenities. But the personalities that make the English village such a unique community are alive and well ... and living (among other places) in Peasenhall. Peasenhall is a village of 550 people - a straggle of houses lost in the fields of East Suffolk. It's not a particularly pretty village, and the last time most people heard of it was in 1902 when a young housemaid was murdered there - still a daily topic of conversation in the village. It sounds sleepy enough. But in fact, Peasenhall is alive with vivid personalities who talk about their involvement with the village and its changing way of life with nostalgia, humour, and occasional bitterness. There are the miller, the blacksmith, the farming vicar, the poacher, the gamekeeper, and the undertaker. Robert Dougall, the narrator, lives in Suffolk, only a few miles from Peasenhall. Produced by DAVID GERRARD
44The Day They Sold AlaskaA film about the greatest sale on earth Produced and narrated by Roger Mills On sale was the oilman's moon-half a million acres of Arctic wilderness, and below it a great ocean of oil. For a day a small municipal hall in Anchorage, Alaska, was the centre of the world, as oil magnates - British and foreign - threw millions on to the table in a ferocious orgy of bidding. The events that surrounded that auction were on the same gargantuan scale. Man conquered the ice-locked North - West Passage, and began to push an 800-mile pipeline across mountains. Two Foreign Secretaries exchanged ' words ' - and notices began to appear which read ' Eskimo Power.' A century ago the United States paid the Tsar of Russia 2d an acre for Alaska. On the day of the great auction, 2d would scarcely have bought a square inch.
451913At the end of another decade this documentary looks back not on the 60s or the 50s, but on a year that really meant the end of one era, the start of another- 1913. The last year when people could ignore the undercurrent of change that was sweeping across Europe. The year of shocks; of pomp and rebellion. The year of opposites; of chaperones and jazz. The year of amazement; surrealism, speed, zeppelins. London, half a century ago, was the ' premier capital of Europe,' yet the gulf between the top and bottom people was immense. In Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm thought of peace and bigger, more glorious Germany. In Russia the Tsar and his family, four years away from revolution and murder, were celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. In Vienna 83-year-old Franz Josef sat on a tottering throne. Only one of the families who ruled the four great empires from London, Berlin, St Petersburg and Vienna was to survive.