Jessie Matthews
40 Minutes (1981)
Season 8
40 Minutes was a BBC TV documentary strand broadcast on BBC Two between 1981 and 1994. The documentaries could be on any possible subject, the only connection being that they last forty minutes. Some documentaries in the original series were revisited and updated in a 2006 version, Forty Minutes On.
Released Sept. 30, 1981
Episode 40 min
None+
Genres: Documentary
Keywords: imdb.running-time-in-the-title, imdb.two-word-title
Network: BBC Two
Country: United Kingdom
Languages:
English
S8E1 - Dolebusters
The East Kent Dole Fraud team cracking down on "fiddlers and scroungers".
Oct. 20, 1988, midnight
S8E2 - I Want to Live
Kate Matthews extraordinary fight against cancer to survive, after learning that she has just 12 weeks to live.
Oct. 27, 1988, midnight
S8E3 - The Gypsies Are Coming
The impact of 2,500 gypsies and travellers on the sleepy market town of Appleby in Cumbria, which each June the travellers invade for the annual horse fair.
Nov. 3, 1988, midnight
S8E4 - Desirable Dwellings
Lucinda Lambton has photographed houses for 27 years. She conducts a personal and enthusiastic tour around her favourites - some of Britain's oddest, most individual and delightful homes. Lucinda's travels take her to a Hollywood hacienda in Derbyshire, created for a man who banished straight lines; a clairvoyant's bijou residence in the air; a Gothic castle now being built by a ruralist in deepest Cornwall; a haunted Victorian hotchpotch of a place north of the Humber, where the tiles don't match; and a circular confection of great charm in Devon, created by the Misses Parminter.
Nov. 10, 1988, midnight
S8E5 - A Policewoman's Lot
Out on patrol with the policewomen of the West Midlands Force, revealing the change in their role since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.
Nov. 17, 1988, midnight
S8E6 - Making the Grade
The inside story of the examinations of the Royal School of Music, following four musicians and their examiner through their rehearsals and preparation, and into the exam. room itself.
Nov. 24, 1988, midnight
S8E7 - Greenfinches
Three soldiers - all members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, all in the-front line of Northern Ireland's tense security troubles - and all three are women.
Dec. 1, 1988, midnight
S8E8 - Jam Today
Highlighting the desperation that debt can bring to people's lives.
Dec. 8, 1988, midnight
S8E9 - To Have and to Hold
Three women who have had to face the break-up of long and seemingly happy marriages, and to being single once again.
Jan. 5, 1989, midnight
S8E10 - The Day I Met the Queen
Memorable meetings between subjects and their monarch - revealing the special place the Queen holds in the hearts of her subjects.
Jan. 12, 1989, midnight
S8E11 - The Kingdom of Fun
The largest leisure and shopping complex in Europe, the Metro Centre in Tynemouth, and its creator John Hall.
Jan. 19, 1989, midnight
S8E12 - Our Darren
Darren Lillywhite was 17, mischievous and high-spirited. He and his mates were a lively lot, always getting into scrapes around the village of Cranleigh, where they grew up. Darren had owned his prized Vauxhall Astra for just a few weeks. One August evening in 1987 he drove it into a roundabout and was thrown from the car. Now he is paralysed from the neck down and can do nothing for himself. Darren has been at Stoke Mandeville Hospital for ten months, but his family is determined to get him back home. Terry and Marilyn Lillywhite have built a special extension to their house. If Darren makes it, his family, neighbours and friends will all be joining in the celebration. No one can help liking Darren. 'I don't feel bitter about it at all,' he says. 'It's like being born again, really....'
Jan. 26, 1989, midnight
S8E13 - Jealousy
The effects of jealousy on three victims.
Feb. 2, 1989, midnight
S8E14 - Cairo Vets
The Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo aims to provide the best veterinary care for the poorest section of the community.
Feb. 9, 1989, midnight
S8E15 - I Like the Girls Who Do
Celebrates the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe's hero, music-hall comedian Max Millar.
Feb. 16, 1989, midnight
S8E16 - Knickerbockers in Knightsbridge
The story of Hill House School and its unique headmaster, Colonel Stuart Townend.
Feb. 23, 1989, midnight
S8E17 - Ghost Train
A journey by Intercity into the world of the supernatural. Do you believe in ghosts? Helen McCormick does. She found an ancient crucifix in her cellar - and then saw a medieval monk walk past her kitchen window. Ambulanceman Ken Lobley rescued his aunt after a warning from an apparition. Nichola Thompson, aged 13, was reading, looked up, and saw her grandmother - wearing the pink shroud she'd been buried in two years earlier. Rev Jack Richardson investigates spooky Harnham Hall in Northumberland. He blesses the earthly remains of Kate Babington, who died a prisoner at Harnham in 1670. Eddie Burks, a 'clairsentient', is summoned to an RAF base to contact the ghost of an airman. Eerily, he describes how the man died and why he returns. And four nurses spend the night in 'the most haunted house in Britain' - with strange tales to tell the following morning....
March 2, 1989, midnight
S8E18 - Raging Belles
The two top women's wrestlers in Britain fight for the most coveted prize, The British Ladies' Championship Belt
March 9, 1989, midnight
S8E19 - By Steam to Sennar Junction
A dedicated engineer and tough businessman goes from South Wales to the Sudan to rehabilitate Sudan's decaying railways.
March 16, 1989, midnight
S8E20 - Wedding at Easington
One in six in the old coal-mining district of Easington is out of work. Tom and Dawn are both unemployed and it is their wedding day. What does the future hold for them?
March 23, 1989, midnight
S8E21 - Violent
Apparently unprovoked and irrational acts of violence. Why do they happen? What are the effects on the victims?
March 30, 1989, midnight
S8E22 - Catwalk
It's said that 2,000 dogs and 4,000 cats are destroyed in Britain every day. Celia Hammond was a top fashion model. Now she's so furious about the destruction of healthy animals that she's given up her career, even her personal life, to rescue as many strays as she can. She prowls the wastelands and alleyways of London to save frightened, injured and lost cats. Her ultimate aim is to set up her own low-cost spaying and neutering clinics.
April 6, 1989, midnight
S8E23 - Two Sides of a Street
A real life soap opera is unfolding in Cardross Street, West London. A Royal Ballet star, a man who owns a share in a race horse, and a peer's daughter now live side by side with old folk who have rented their houses all their lives. Once the street was filled with families. Now it's being taken over and tarted up by the young rich with no children. 'Funeral today - skip tomorrow' is how the locals describe what's happening. Had they been able to afford it, the old timers could have bought their homes for £200. Now unmodernised two-up two-downs with outside loos are snapped up at £150,000. 'For the old people the street is a way of life,' says the Hon Henrietta Roper-Curzon . 'For us it is just a transitory thing. When they leave it's in a hearse. We leave in the removal van'. With John Pitman.
April 20, 1989, midnight
S8E24 - Inside Broadmoor
The famous high-security hospital and a new therapeutic regime.
April 27, 1989, midnight
S8E25 - Laid Off
Following two people, one in the North and one in the South of England, from the time they are made redundant through three months of job-hunting.
May 4, 1989, midnight
S8E26 - London Lighthouse
An insight into the first few months of Britain's first purpose-built AIDS hospice. London Lighthouse is an experiment. The building is striking. The approach to nursing is radical. The project could provide a model for the health care of the future. Beatty King, 26, is one of 15 nurses working at Lighthouse. On night shift, she spends the small hours gently negotiating with Colin, who's desperate to smoke, and sitting with Christopher, who is close to death. The patients appreciate having as much say as possible in how they are looked after. But as relationships develop, emotional pressures increase. Beatty admits, 'I don't think I realised what I was letting myself in for....'.
May 11, 1989, midnight
S8E27 - Who'll Win Jeanette?
A young American travels from Tampa to Vermont, inspecting the parents who want to adopt her unborn child - and finally makes her choice.
May 18, 1989, midnight
BBC Two
40 min/ep
40 min
Sept. 30, 1981
April 19, 1994, midnight
Ended
NR
Rate this show
Add {Movie} to static lists