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After Cathy

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15/11/2016

BBC Radio 4 - After Cathy

The harrowing personal stories that lie behind today's homeless headlines.

Fifty years after the film Cathy Come Home revealed the desperate state of Britain's housing, this programme hears the harrowing personal stories that lie behind today's headlines.

Fifty years ago, the groundbreaking film "Cathy Come Home" shocked Britain by revealing the desperate state of housing and its human implications. Half a century later, Sarah Montague hears the harrowing personal stories that lie behind today's headlines. 

This documentary follows three homeless people over the course of this year: Stewart Parkinson - a once successful businessman, now in a homeless hostel in High Wycombe; Bernard Davey - a folk singer in Leeds, struggling with alcoholism, and Zahra (not her real name) - a homeless teacher with two children in London. 

"Cathy Come Home" broke many boundaries in its gritty, realistic documentary style, shot on hand-held 16mm cameras. "After Cathy" captures a similar sense of authenticity today...in place of the 16mm film, audio recorded on the mobile phones of the people in our documentary. 

The detail of the day-to-day lives of these three people, as told in some powerful audio diaries, is - at times - starkly grim. It's a story of fear, violence, individuals worn down by an inhuman system - but there's some remarkable human spirit. 


Producer: Adele Armstrong.

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