Story The First Day at Nursery School by JUDY WHITFIELD Photographs by JAMES MATTHEWS-JOYCE -JOYCE. Presenteis Carol Leader, Chris Tranchell

The Braniff Airways World Doubles Championship
Further coverage from the Grand Hall, Olympia.

4.50 S101 Preparatory Maths - Numbers

5.5 The First Years of Life - On the Way

5.30 Interval

The classic serial in 12 exciting episodes, starring
Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon 1: The Purple Death
In which Flash Gordon and his friends Dale Arden and Dr Zarkov set out by rocket ship to start the hazardous attempt to prevent Emperor Ming the Merciless from destroying Earth by a plague.

A Circus of Experiments
The Royal Institution's Annual Christmas Lectures for Young People This 150th series is given by Professor Eric M. Rogers of Princeton and the Nuffield Foundation A series of six programmes 4- Atoms that Explode
See radio-activity demonstrated by its effects as unstable nuclei ' explode ' hurling out minute fragments which trigger a Geiger counter or make visible cloud trails in damp air. Watch the law of radioactive decay measured in a real experiment; see radio-active atoms used as an ultra-sensitive tracer in a living plant. We shall introduce knowledge of half-life - essential to understanding nuclear safety. Finally, see light being questioned as to whether it is a wave or a bullet.
(Part 5 tomorrow)

Karl and his big brother Jonathan travel from our world through mythical valleys of monsters to become The Brothers Lionheart - fighting for life against death, for love against hate, and for liberty against tyranny.
The Prisoner in Katla's
Cavern Jonathan and Crispy penetrate the mountain fastness of Tengil's fortress to rescue Orvar.
(Final part tomorrow)

including a news summary with sub-titles for the hard-of-hearing, followed by Weather

A railway dies when its heart is rotten and its owners no longer believe in it. In 1954, the narrow-gauge Festiniog line in North Wales was dead. It had turned away passengers, trees grew through its track, and its upper section was soon to be drowned by a hydro-electric scheme.
From the earliest days, when hordes of workmen struggled to build its mile-long embankment across the tide-ripped Glaslyn estuary, the line had a threatened existence. But the latest disaster seemed final.
Railway expert Robert Symes uncovers the background story of the Festiniog's many brushes with death, and how a new generation of determined men brought it triumphantly to life once more.
Film cameraman PETER CHAPMAN Film sound IAN SANSAM
Film editors COLIN JONES , GEOFF MOORE Producer ROBIN BOOTLE

Gavin Millar talks pictures every month with the people who make them.
' My first memory of my mother was of me, aged two, sitting in her bicycle basket, facing her and the moon. There was a confusion in my mind between the moon and my mother's face. '
Bernardo Bertolucci 's Luna opened yesterday in London. Following the epic scope of the two-part politico-historical drama, 1900, Bertolucci has surprised everyone with a personal love story; a love story with a difference, since it deals with the confused passion of a mother for her son. There have been predictable outcries; but Bertolucci, after Last Tango in Paris and The Conformist, is used to controversy.
Studio director JILL EVANS Research CARIN VON DREHLE Film editor NORMAN CARR Producer GAVIN MILLAR

PETER USTINOV 'S family were architects and theatre designers in Leningrad when it was still St Petersburg. He himself is proud to report that he was conceived there! NATALIE WOOD 'S family also comes from Russia and she speaks the language fluently.
For the first programme in BBC2's special Russian Season, Peter and Natalie take us on a vivid and unconventional tour of the Hermitage, one of the world's greatest treasure houses of art and history, housed in the beautiful Winter Palace on the banks of the Neva. We see fabulous golden sculpture fashioned by the Scythians over 2,000 years ago; great Rembrandts, Raphaels and Titians traced down all over Europe by Catherine the Great; superb early Picassos and Matisses, priceless gems, an enormous Wedgwood dinner service, the famous gilded peacock clock, all magnificently displayed in rooms which themselves are works of art.
Film cameraman CLIVE TICKNER
Film sound JUDY FREEMAN , PETER RANN Film editor PAUL O'DELL
Associate producers TANYA BRUCE-LOCKHART and ALFRED MARIA-SCHWARZER
Script DEREK BAILEY and JUDY MARI. E
Executive producers WILLIAM STORKE (NBC) and HUMPHREY BURTON (BBC)
Directed and produced by DEREK BAILEY A LANDSEER film for
Lothar Bock Associates , Munich

Part 1 of a special concert from the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the 70th birthday of the world's most legendary jazz violinist. His special guests are
Didier Lockwood , David Grisman also featuring
Diz Dizley, John Etheridge Brian Torff and Phil Bates
Sound CHRIS HOLCOMBE
Lighting BERT ROBINSON Designer PAUL JOEL
Production YVONNE LITTLEWOOD (Part 2 tomorrow at 10.15 pm)

Weather

takes an optimistic look at the week, with Barbara Dickson and her band and special guests
Director DEREK TOWERS
Producer KEN STEPHINSON. BBC Manchester

The Christmas Tree Suite by FRANZ LISZT
On the ninth day of Christmas RHONDDA GILLESPIE plays the ninth movement from this little-known suite for piano. Evening Bells
Producer KENNETH CORDEN Director HELEN MORION