Here's some coal for firelight and cheer
Best wishes to all for a happy New Year
Today's story: "Geoffrey Loses his Voice" by Helen Palmer
Presenters this week Julie Stevens, Johnny Ball

The Royal Institution, London Annual Christmas Lectures to Young People by Professor Charles Taylor.

The first second in a sound's life is the most important. With the help of musical instruments, student musicians and some fascinating experiments, Professor Taylor explores the beginning of musical sound.
In this programme we discover that the understanding of a sound is much more than simply knowing how it is made.
(Lecture 3: Tuesday, 6.30 pm)

with Peter Woods
Weather

A Western adventure series
Starring Pete Duel as Smith and Ben Murphy as Jones
with guest stars Monte Markham, Meredith MacRae, Roger Perry, Noah Beery

A rich rancher hires Smith and Jones to retrieve his runaway wife. Although it's a little out of their usual line of work the boys feel a certain modest pride when their mission is successful. That is until something happens which mars their achievement somewhat - murder.

A duel of words and wit between Frank Muir, Paula Wilcox, Miles Kington and Patrick Campbell, Glynis Johns, Bill Simpson
Referee Robert Robinson
(from Manchester)

This week's programme in the series on Man and Science today.

According to present plans, you may be able to cross to France by Channel Tunnel in 1978 - official. But after 170 years of hopes and fears in which all plans have been killed by a mixture of claustrophobia and xenophobia, the last major obstacle is a credibility gap. Is it now at last possible that a tunnel will be built?
Horizon visits some of the most complex tunnelling projects in the world today - in America, Japan, Denmark and Mexico - to see how far we have progressed from the glorious engineering adventures of the Victorians towards what planners would like to be able to think of as precise and predictable.
But is it? Just how feasible is that 35-mile hole through the chalk from Britain to France?

by B.S. Johnson
An uncouth husband, a cruel father... he needs to keep his skill and compassion in reserve.
[Starring] Hugh Burden as the Husband, Brenda Bruce as the Wife, Fiona Walker as Rosa, William Hoyland as Jerry
(Brenda Bruce is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.)

and Weather

with Joan Bakewell, Tony Bilbow, Sheridan Morley, Ray Taylor