Story: "The Big River" by Elizabeth and Gerald Rose.

(Repeated on BBC1 at 4.20 pm)
(Colour)

Live coverage of the special meeting of the Central Council of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations addressed by the Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Edward Heath, MP.

(to 19.00)

with Peter Woods
Weather

Reporters Jim Douglas Henry, Jeremy James, Jeanne La Char, Denis Tuohy, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

This week: The Prisoner
What chance has John Booroff got? At 38, a petty criminal, he wanted, more than anything, to go straight. For five years he made it. He succeeded in putting behind him a lifetime of crime, 17 prison sentences served in 20 years. For the first time in his life he led what the prison authorities call 'a good and useful life.' He met and married a woman who had never had a wrong word with the police. They started a family, he found the kind of security and the sort of love he'd never known before.

Then he was back in prison again - where we met him. An experienced, embittered criminal. He's out now, trying, once again, to go straight. Should the rest of us even care? There are experts concerned with prison, crime and recidivists who spend much time considering the problem.

The story of John Booroff is that of just one man, one set of circumstances, one life of crime. So if it illuminates the problem, it does so by letting us understand a single prisoner. There are 40,000 men behind bars in this country today. John Booroff is one who wants to go straight, and stay out In his eyes his life went wrong almost from the day he was born. He's nearly middle-aged now. Can he make it?

A singer and his songs
Loudon Wainwright III sings 'Waiting for you,' 'Saw your name in the paper,' 'Medley,' 'Be careful there's a baby in the house'

A bird's-eye view by Albert Lamorisse
For Bastille Day, an award-winning film about the sumptuous palace and gardens of Versailles. Albert Lamorisse is the celebrated French director who made The Red Balloon, White Stallion, Stowaway in the Sky, and Paris Rediscovered.
In tonight's film Lamorisse's aerial camera captures the stunning profusion of Versailles's cascading fountains; the patterns of its formal gardens; the bowers, walks and glades in which Marie Antoinette played shepherdess and Louis XIV shaped Europe's most spectacular architectural masterpiece. "-
This English version is narrated by Brewster Mason
Written by Richard Wade'

by Bernard Shaw
[Starring] Geraldine McEwan, George Baker and Timothy Dalton

A mystery.

"The atmosphere of the period was superbly re-created and fitted perfectly into the small screen" (James Thomas: Daily Express)

(Colour)
(Geraldine McEwan is a National Theatre player)
(First shown on BBC1)
("England's First St Joan" starring Sybil Thorndike in scenes from Bernard Shaw's play: Friday at 3.0, Radio 4)