Swing Your Partner and On the Fire

A Panorama Report
Are patients better or worse off in today's National Health Service? Panorama has gained exclusive access to the inner workings of an average Health Authority to find out. Margaret Jay talks to patients and the doctors and nurses about their concerns. And in its own opinion poll Panorama reveals what the people of Blackburn think of their Health Service. Producer KATHY O'NEIL
Editor DAVID DICKINSON (R)

Between Salisbury Plain and the New Forest is a countryside of deep woodland and high rolling downs. This is Cranborne Chase, a place for woodcock and lapwing, where march hares court and display, and fallow and roe deer run free.
A wildlife classic from
ERIC ASHBY, produced in 1973. Produced by SUZANNE GIBBS BBC West (R)

Regional News and Weather

Topical conversation and music to round off the week.

Presented by Jane Franchi Richard Bonthrone is 10 years old but he has the brain of a 6-month-old baby.
Just days after his whooping cough vaccine at 4 months old, he started having convulsions. Since then he's changed only physically. He is utterly helpless.
His parents, John and Iris refused to put him in a home and forget about him.
Richard lives with them and his two brothers, John William and Frazer, at Embo in Sutherland. For a week a BBC crew lived with them too. They learned a little about the problems and a great deal about love, in this story of what the Bonthrones will do for the love of Richard. PSC cameraman KEN GOW Producer SANDY CHISHOLM

Some of the music, films and drama in store this Christmas on BBC2.

First Semifinal
From the original 302 choirs only 12 now remain and the competition moves to the Opera House in Buxton for the final stages.
Brian Kay again introduces the programmes of the four adult and two youth choirs. Lighting JOHN BLACK
Producer HILARY BOULDING Director ALAN TONGUE BBC Scotland
(In association with J. Sainsbury)

With Lesley Judd Fred Harris and Ian McNaught-Davis This week the latest hardware and software for creating music on micros, a look at an amazing new driving simulator just arrived in this country which was the sensation of the recent Tokyo Electronics Show, and from California comes a story of a wine grower who is trying to use computer-controlled analysis equipment to discover what makes a good wine.
Studio director ALAN HADYN GRIFFITHS
Producers PETER BRATT. TERRY MARSH
Series editor DAVID ALLEN (e)

'Inside the hatch you couldn't see anything. It was like a snowstorm with the dust falling down and covering you. We were breathing it, eating it, drinking it, even playing with it.'
A Southampton docker remembers the weekly task, 25 years ago, of unloading asbestos from South African Cape boats. Today a growing number of those dockers are being struck down with asbestos-related lung diseases. Some of the victims have died before receiving any compensation. Now union officials are calling for a mass X-ray of all the dockers who handled asbestos, in order to discover how many have suffered the snowstorm inheritance.
Executive producer DAVID SEYMOUR Producer MARK BYFORD

with Susan Hampshire and Geoff Hamilton
Christmas is coming and this is very much in mind in tonight's programme.
Novelty plants, miniature trees and orchids are all featured, together with a new way of growing plants in hydroculture. But for those who still like to use more conventional methods there's advice on which compost to use and when to feed your houseplants.
Production assistants
JEAN LAUGHTON. CHRISTINE HARDMAN Producer JOHN KENYON BBC Pebble Mill
* CEEFAX SUBTITLES

with John Pitman
The last of six films Fairford
A Cotswold Town:
A NATO Base
In April this year, nine
KC 135 Stratotankers - flying petrol pumps - took off from Fairford to refuel the F-llls that bombed Libya.
Yet an incident that made world headlines and caused an international crisis seems to have had little effect on the local people.
The baker hardly notices the Americans. The water bailiff doesn't worry about their presence. Only a small warning voice is heard every so often. 'If there is a war,
Fairford is a bulls eye', says author Susie Vereker. 'The whole of Gloucestershire is, in fact.' In the meantime sheep are sheared, bells are rung and the harvest is safely gathered in ... Photography MIKE wilkie
Film editor CHRISTINE GARNER Series producer ANN PAUL Director BETTY MCBRIDE

Night Moves

Fifty years ago Basil Wright and Harry Watts' classic documentary "Night Mail" celebrated the role of the railways as the nation's distributor of goods, mail, food, and other essentials.
In 1986 Arena's 'Night Moves' celebrates the role of the trucking industry - the age of steam has become the day of the articulated lorry.

Count every commodity on a supermarket shelf, virtually every object you can buy - a lorry put it there. With Timothy Spall as The Fool on the Road and specially written music by Ian Dury, Arena goes trucking. 'Night Moves' creates a kaleidoscope of travel, incident, action and celebrities that will astonish everyone who thinks lorries just block the road.

Feature: page 1

with Peter Snow
Donald MacCormick and Nick Worrall
And the day's news from home and abroad with Ian Smith , Nick Clarke
Gill Nevill and Chris Lowe

starring with The Prisoner of Rosemont Hall Rockford discovers that strange fraternity rituals hide more deadly deeds when he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a young student.
Written by STEPHEN CANNELL Directed by IVAN DIXON (R)