Achievement... Happiness... Tragedy... Stress...
A weekly programme which focuses on people and the situations which shape their lives
Reporters: Jim Douglas Henry, Angela Huth, Jeremy James, John Percival, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

This week: Can You Read This?
As many as one million adult people in Great Britain today may well be able to watch and understand tonight's Man Alive programme. But they won't be able to learn about it in advance by reading this. They are illiterate. Men and women of all ages who frequently lead lives of deceit and secrecy in an attempt to conceal their inability to read and write. Women who shop in fear that the colour and shapes of household packages may change - because the words and brand names might as well be Chinese. Men who invent excuses about lost spectacles when faced with forms to fill in and directions to read. People travelling around with their own invented systems of remembering railway stations and bus stops. And perhaps the biggest scandal of all - in 1968 - an estimated fifteen per cent of fifteen-year-old school leavers who have failed to learn effectively how to read and write. Whose fault is it? And what should be done?

(Colour)