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.
Showing Season 8 of 14
Season 8
1988
No overview available.
01. Dolebusters
1988-10-20
The East Kent Dole Fraud team cracking down on "fiddlers and scroungers".
02. I Want to Live
1988-10-27
Kate Matthews extraordinary fight against cancer to survive, after learning that she has just 12 weeks to live.
03. The Gypsies Are Coming
1988-11-03
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.
04. Desirable Dwellings
1988-11-10
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.
05. A Policewoman's Lot
1988-11-17
Out on patrol with the policewomen of the West Midlands Force, revealing the change in their role since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.
06. Making the Grade
1988-11-24
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.
07. Greenfinches
1988-12-01
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.
08. Jam Today
1988-12-08
Highlighting the desperation that debt can bring to people's lives.
09. To Have and to Hold
1989-01-05
Three women who have had to face the break-up of long and seemingly happy marriages, and to being single once again.
10. The Day I Met the Queen
1989-01-12
Memorable meetings between subjects and their monarch - revealing the special place the Queen holds in the hearts of her subjects.
11. The Kingdom of Fun
1989-01-19
The largest leisure and shopping complex in Europe, the Metro Centre in Tynemouth, and its creator John Hall.
12. Our Darren
1989-01-26
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....'
13. Jealousy
1989-02-02
The effects of jealousy on three victims.
14. Cairo Vets
1989-02-09
The Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo aims to provide the best veterinary care for the poorest section of the community.
15. I Like the Girls Who Do
1989-02-16
Celebrates the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe's hero, music-hall comedian Max Millar.
16. Knickerbockers in Knightsbridge
1989-02-23
The story of Hill House School and its unique headmaster, Colonel Stuart Townend.
17. Ghost Train
1989-03-02
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....
18. Raging Belles
1989-03-09
The two top women's wrestlers in Britain fight for the most coveted prize, The British Ladies' Championship Belt
19. By Steam to Sennar Junction
1989-03-16
A dedicated engineer and tough businessman goes from South Wales to the Sudan to rehabilitate Sudan's decaying railways.
20. Wedding at Easington
1989-03-23
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?
21. Violent
1989-03-30
Apparently unprovoked and irrational acts of violence. Why do they happen? What are the effects on the victims?
22. Catwalk
1989-04-06
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.
23. Two Sides of a Street
1989-04-20
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.
24. Inside Broadmoor
1989-04-27
The famous high-security hospital and a new therapeutic regime.
25. Laid Off
1989-05-04
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.
26. London Lighthouse
1989-05-11
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....'.
27. Who'll Win Jeanette?
1989-05-18
A young American travels from Tampa to Vermont, inspecting the parents who want to adopt her unborn child - and finally makes her choice.