0:00:02 > 0:00:07Contains language which some may find offensive.
0:00:07 > 0:00:08In the early 1980s,
0:00:08 > 0:00:11Britain was struggling to hold back a tide of change.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Danger seemed to be lurking everywhere.
0:00:16 > 0:00:18And at the beginning of the decade,
0:00:18 > 0:00:20we found ourselves under attack.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27This was an invasion not just of our streets and our homes,
0:00:27 > 0:00:28but of our hearts and minds.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32Resistance was futile.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35For, almost overnight, Britain had fallen -
0:00:35 > 0:00:37to the space invaders.
0:00:39 > 0:00:40# Dance all night
0:00:40 > 0:00:42# Get real loose
0:00:42 > 0:00:43# You don't need no bad excuse... #
0:00:43 > 0:00:48These Japanese machines first came to Britain in January 1979.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52And before long, they were in arcades from St Andrews
0:00:52 > 0:00:53to St Austell.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59In the halls of Westminster, MPs debated what one called
0:00:59 > 0:01:02"the growing menace of the video games arcade."
0:01:05 > 0:01:08By now, the tabloids were overflowing with horror stories
0:01:08 > 0:01:12about British children who'd fallen victim to the alien plague.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18They skipped school and missed meals.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23They'd become zombies, sleepwalkers oblivious to everything around them,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26as they played on and on to the brink...
0:01:26 > 0:01:28of destruction!
0:01:32 > 0:01:37The moral panic over video games arcades was just one example
0:01:37 > 0:01:40of the deep anxiety running right through the heart of the decade.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46The headlines were dominated by one battle after another,
0:01:46 > 0:01:49and almost every week brought some new controversy
0:01:49 > 0:01:52about the morals of the young and the state of the nation.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56MUSIC: I Don't Need This Pressure On by Spandau Ballet
0:01:56 > 0:01:59Getting to grips with the threat of AIDS...
0:01:59 > 0:02:01This is a condom.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04It is rolled over the man's penis
0:02:04 > 0:02:06before sexual intercourse begins.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10..taking on racism and prejudice...
0:02:10 > 0:02:11Paki!
0:02:15 > 0:02:17..backing our boys in the Falklands.
0:02:17 > 0:02:22I felt very, very proud and, please God, they pull it off.
0:02:23 > 0:02:24Only decades earlier,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Britain had been defined by its industrial might
0:02:27 > 0:02:30and imperial supremacy.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32But, in the age of globalisation,
0:02:32 > 0:02:35the power of British Empire and of British manufacturing
0:02:35 > 0:02:37seemed like ancient history.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44By the middle of the 1980s, Britain stood at a crossroads.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47And the one hand, the reassurance of the familiar,
0:02:47 > 0:02:52the world of industry and Empire, coal and steam.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54And on the other, the shock of the new.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58An exciting, unsettling new world of foreign imports
0:02:58 > 0:03:00and digital technology.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03These were the years in which Britain redefined itself
0:03:03 > 0:03:05for the 21st century.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10A nation forged in battle against enemies without and within.
0:03:10 > 0:03:11# I don't need this pressure on
0:03:11 > 0:03:15# I don't need this pressure on... #
0:03:25 > 0:03:27MUSIC: Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie
0:03:27 > 0:03:31One cold evening in March 1982,
0:03:31 > 0:03:34a distinguished-looking man strode across Westminster Bridge.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38Dressed in military uniform,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41he bore a look of grim determination
0:03:41 > 0:03:43and he strode into the Palace of Westminster,
0:03:43 > 0:03:47narrowly avoiding being detained by a policeman in the lobby.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51His name was Admiral Sir Henry Leach,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54First Sea Lord and head of the Royal navy.
0:03:55 > 0:04:00Leach had come to the Commons to confront the unthinkable.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02Thousands of miles away,
0:04:02 > 0:04:06Argentina's Navy was poised to land on the Falkland Islands,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09a far-flung outpost of British territory in the freezing waters
0:04:09 > 0:04:11of the South Atlantic.
0:04:12 > 0:04:13GUNFIRE
0:04:20 > 0:04:22# Pressure
0:04:22 > 0:04:24# Pushing down on me
0:04:24 > 0:04:25# Pressing down on you... #
0:04:25 > 0:04:27Within hours, the Argentine invaders
0:04:27 > 0:04:30had overwhelmed the island's governor and his token garrison.
0:04:45 > 0:04:478,000 miles away,
0:04:47 > 0:04:50Margaret Thatcher's government was in crisis,
0:04:50 > 0:04:52and the stage was set for Henry Leach.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58He went straight into the Prime Minister's room and standing there,
0:04:58 > 0:05:01a magnificent martial figure in his naval regalia,
0:05:01 > 0:05:05he gave Margaret Thatcher perhaps the single most important advice
0:05:05 > 0:05:07of her entire career.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11Not just that we COULD fight this war, but that we MUST.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14MUSIC: War Child by Blondie
0:05:14 > 0:05:17That was Mrs Thatcher's kind of talk.
0:05:17 > 0:05:18Fighting talk.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22And within hours, Britain was preparing for war.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30To her critics, Mrs Thatcher's decision to send a task force
0:05:30 > 0:05:34halfway across the world to kick out the Argentine invaders
0:05:34 > 0:05:37felt like something from the days of gunboat diplomacy
0:05:37 > 0:05:39and the age of Empire.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41But, for precisely that reason,
0:05:41 > 0:05:43many people rather loved it.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46And when the task force sailed from Portsmouth docks,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50it did so amid a vast outpouring of national sentiment,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53the air ringing with patriotic hymns.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55CROWD SINGS "SAILING"
0:06:04 > 0:06:07We can't allow them to walk all over us and kick us in the face.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10Would you be saying that if you had a relation on board those ships?
0:06:10 > 0:06:12Oh, yes. Definitely.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19All of this bullish patriotism made for a stark contrast with the way
0:06:19 > 0:06:24the press and public had treated Britain's Armed Forces in the 1970s.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31For more than a decade,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34the British Army had been bogged down in Northern Ireland.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37And if the Falklands felt relatively clear-cut,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39then Northern Ireland was a nightmare
0:06:39 > 0:06:42in endless, muddy shades of grey.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44Not just a divisive conflict,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47but a dirty one, in which Britain's fighting men had been dogged
0:06:47 > 0:06:51by accusations of torture and assassination.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55But now, the Falklands had thrown up an enemy against whom
0:06:55 > 0:06:58the British people could stand united.
0:06:58 > 0:06:59MUSIC: Stand And Deliver by Adam And The Ants
0:06:59 > 0:07:01# I'm the dandy highwayman
0:07:01 > 0:07:03# Who you're too scared to mention... #
0:07:03 > 0:07:07No casting agency could have supplied a more fitting villain.
0:07:07 > 0:07:12A South American military dictator, General Leopoldo Galtieri.
0:07:20 > 0:07:21Fighting the war was one thing,
0:07:21 > 0:07:23but winning it was quite another.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Never before had any Government fought such a difficult
0:07:30 > 0:07:33naval campaign, thousands of miles from home
0:07:33 > 0:07:37in the freezing waters of the South Atlantic.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39It was for that very reason that Mrs Thatcher's government
0:07:39 > 0:07:43kept its cards extremely close to its chest.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46News, some of it very bad news,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49only reached the public in short bursts,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52delivered by the defence spokesman Ian McDonald,
0:07:52 > 0:07:55not, perhaps, one of life's natural broadcasters.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58In the course of its duties,
0:07:58 > 0:08:03HMS Sheffield, a Type 42 destroyer,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08was attacked and hit late this afternoon
0:08:09 > 0:08:11by an Argentinian missile.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14As for TV footage,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18strikingly little actually made it back to Britain from the front lines
0:08:18 > 0:08:21and those reports that did were very carefully censored.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25'I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid,
0:08:25 > 0:08:29'but I counted them all out and I counted them all back.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32'Their pilots were unhurt, cheerful and jubilant,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34giving thumbs-up signs.'
0:08:34 > 0:08:36MUSIC: The Hurting by Tears For Fears
0:08:36 > 0:08:40It was a gruelling and bloody campaign, but on the 14th June,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43with the British troops outside Port Stanley,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Argentine morale collapsed.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48There is a white flag flying over Stanley.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Bloody marvellous!
0:08:54 > 0:08:56Victory had come at a heavy price.
0:08:56 > 0:08:5914 ships, more than 900 lives,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03broken bodies and shellshocked minds.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09But it was victory all the same
0:09:09 > 0:09:11and it had taken just ten weeks.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15- MARGARET THATCHER: - We, the British people,
0:09:15 > 0:09:18are proud of what has been done.
0:09:18 > 0:09:23Proud of these heroic pages in our island's story.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25Proud to be British.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30Proud indeed.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33Once again, it seemed that Britain has stood up alone against
0:09:33 > 0:09:35a foreign bully and won.
0:09:38 > 0:09:39For Britain's Armed Forces,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43the stains of Northern Ireland were quietly forgotten.
0:09:43 > 0:09:48Now, our boys were national heroes once again.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50And what Mrs Thatcher had proudly called
0:09:50 > 0:09:52"the spirit of the South Atlantic"
0:09:52 > 0:09:55was more than just a political soundbite.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57There was, I think, a palpable sense
0:09:57 > 0:10:02that after years of imperial decline, Britain had rediscovered
0:10:02 > 0:10:03its patriotic pride.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05A warrior nation,
0:10:05 > 0:10:07renewed in battle.
0:10:09 > 0:10:10MUSIC: Wouldn't It Be Good by Nik Kershaw
0:10:23 > 0:10:27For a time, the Falklands victory gave Britain a new sense
0:10:27 > 0:10:28of national self-confidence.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30# I got it bad
0:10:30 > 0:10:31# You don't know how bad I got it #
0:10:31 > 0:10:33But in the turbulent world of the 1980s,
0:10:33 > 0:10:38there was always another demon to confront, some of them much closer to home.
0:10:38 > 0:10:39# It's getting harder
0:10:39 > 0:10:40# Just keeping life and soul together... #
0:10:40 > 0:10:42One day in March 1982,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46a small business sent out one of its staff to post a package
0:10:46 > 0:10:49to an elderly woman in a quiet village near Colchester.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55The lady in question was a retired schoolmistress.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58A churchgoer. A letter writer.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00The kind of public-spirited warrior
0:11:00 > 0:11:04that you'd find in towns and villages all over the country.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08Except that this woman wasn't quite your stereotypical little old lady,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12because her name, you see, was Mary Whitehouse.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15MUSIC: Waiting For A Girl Like You by Foreigner
0:11:16 > 0:11:17# I've been waiting
0:11:19 > 0:11:20# For a girl like you #
0:11:22 > 0:11:26Mary Whitehouse had made her name campaigning tirelessly
0:11:26 > 0:11:31against blasphemy, filth and smut in the national media.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34And inside the package was a video cassette.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41In the spring of 1982, video technology was still relatively new.
0:11:41 > 0:11:45Most people were only beginning to buy their first video recorders.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49In fact, my parents didn't get our first VCR until a year or two later.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52So, the video companies were naturally keen to drum up
0:11:52 > 0:11:55as much extra publicity as they could.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57Now, the people who'd sent this package
0:11:57 > 0:11:59were a company called Go Video,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01and what they were hoping was that
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Mrs Whitehouse would watch their film
0:12:03 > 0:12:07and would be so appalled by it that she would go straight on TV
0:12:07 > 0:12:08to condemn it.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11And that way, they'd get thousands of extra viewers.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14And as plans go, it sort of worked,
0:12:14 > 0:12:16because she did watch it,
0:12:16 > 0:12:18and she did talk about it.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20Its name was The Care Bears Mov...
0:12:20 > 0:12:21No, it wasn't.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Its name was Cannibal Holocaust.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Video recorders arrived at the perfect time.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Battered by recession and unemployment,
0:12:34 > 0:12:36British families were turning inwards.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Instead of spending money outside the home,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42many were now staying in, night after night.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45MUSIC: On TV by The Buggles
0:12:53 > 0:12:58And now, home videos allowed us to choose what we wanted to watch
0:12:58 > 0:13:00and when we wanted to watch it.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04In case you've never seen one of these before, this is a video tape
0:13:04 > 0:13:06and this little thing is creating a big revolution
0:13:06 > 0:13:08in the way that people watch television.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15At first, the big Hollywood studios hesitated to release their films
0:13:15 > 0:13:18on video, worried that people would stop going to the cinema.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24That left a hole in the market,
0:13:24 > 0:13:26a hole that the small independent distributors
0:13:26 > 0:13:28were only too pleased to fill.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32So they pumped out anything they could get their hands on.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34European arthouse classics?
0:13:34 > 0:13:35Well, not quite.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38More slasher flicks and soft-core porn,
0:13:38 > 0:13:43all packaged in these tastefully understated covers.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45Now, unlike cinema releases,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47videos weren't covered by the censorship laws.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49This was home entertainment, right?
0:13:49 > 0:13:51You could watch whatever you liked,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54and that meant that the distributors could get away with, well,
0:13:54 > 0:13:55with anything.
0:13:57 > 0:13:59MUSIC: Living On The Ceiling by Blancmange
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Horror, nudity, murder,
0:14:11 > 0:14:14torture, rape, even cannibalism.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19No wonder Mary Whitehouse was up in arms.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23A new enemy was at hand...
0:14:23 > 0:14:24the video nasties.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30And soon, video nasties were everywhere.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34My own favourite programme even visited a planet devoted
0:14:34 > 0:14:36to the export of explicit videos.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41Are they very disturbing,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44these videos you sell?
0:14:44 > 0:14:47They show what befalls those who refuse to obey the orders
0:14:47 > 0:14:49by which the people of Varos must live.
0:14:49 > 0:14:50Torture!
0:14:50 > 0:14:52Blindness!
0:14:52 > 0:14:53Execution!
0:14:55 > 0:14:57For the anarchic sitcom The Young Ones,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00the video nasties panic was a gift.
0:15:01 > 0:15:02First, we're going to have
0:15:02 > 0:15:04Sex With The Headless Corpse Of The Virgin Astronaut.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09Urgh. Won't the carpet get awfully sticky?
0:15:10 > 0:15:12It's a video nasty!
0:15:12 > 0:15:14It's a carpet, Farty!
0:15:17 > 0:15:22But true to form, Mrs Whitehouse didn't quite see the funny side.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24It's like a plague
0:15:24 > 0:15:29and just as the locusts eat the green leaf,
0:15:29 > 0:15:33so most at risk in this plague
0:15:33 > 0:15:37are the virgin minds of the children.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41One of Mrs Whitehouse's allies compiled a dossier claiming,
0:15:41 > 0:15:45among other things, that half of all small children had already seen
0:15:45 > 0:15:48a video nasty and that the video recorder
0:15:48 > 0:15:51was now replacing the baby-sitter.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Alas, as dossiers go, this one was distinctly dodgy.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58In fact, a later study found that seven out of ten children
0:15:58 > 0:16:02were claiming to have seen films that didn't actually exist.
0:16:04 > 0:16:05MUSIC: Blue Monday by New Order
0:16:07 > 0:16:08Let's have a look at a video.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11Yeah, that one looks good. I heard someone gets strangled in that.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15- Really? Oh, good. I want to see it. - Yeah, you'll like that.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18You see a lot of people getting their heads chopped off
0:16:18 > 0:16:20and slaughtered all over the place.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36I suppose there's obviously a market for them,
0:16:36 > 0:16:38or people wouldn't hire them.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41- 'Do you think there should be legal controls over the distribution?'- No.
0:16:41 > 0:16:42'Why not?'
0:16:42 > 0:16:45Erm, well, I think it's wrong to restrict what people want to see.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47If there's a market for it, let people watch it.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56In the summer of 1983,
0:16:56 > 0:16:59the panic reached its climax.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04An 18-year-old man convicted of rape and burglary blamed the videos.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07"I got the idea for the rapes", he told the court,
0:17:07 > 0:17:09"from a video nasty".
0:17:09 > 0:17:13Here was the evidence that Mary Whitehouse's moral crusaders
0:17:13 > 0:17:15had been looking for.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19A year later, the government passed the Video Recordings Act.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21The worst titles were banned,
0:17:21 > 0:17:25and the rest placed under strict age restrictions.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28Steve? What do I class this as?
0:17:28 > 0:17:29It's masturbation.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33Classify it in the miscellaneous column.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38Just like cinematic releases,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42home entertainment would now be subject to classification
0:17:42 > 0:17:43and state censorship.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49Even if the video nasties panic was a bit exaggerated,
0:17:49 > 0:17:53it was a very striking symptom of the anxieties thrown up
0:17:53 > 0:17:56by social and cultural change.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58Britain in the mid-'80s was a country obsessed with
0:17:58 > 0:18:01the idea of privacy and of domesticity,
0:18:01 > 0:18:03and yet it was getting harder and harder
0:18:03 > 0:18:06to keep the outside world at bay.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09Try as you might, it kept finding its way in,
0:18:09 > 0:18:14seeping through the cracks into the heart of the family living room.
0:18:15 > 0:18:16MUSIC: That's All by Genesis
0:18:16 > 0:18:18And in one corner of England,
0:18:18 > 0:18:21that collision between the speed of change
0:18:21 > 0:18:25and the security of family and community provoked open conflict.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31On the 21st of April 1984,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34hundreds of football fans poured through the turnstiles
0:18:34 > 0:18:37to watch their local heroes Chesterfield, in Derbyshire,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41take on the might of Nottinghamshire's Mansfield town.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43Just another mid-season encounter
0:18:43 > 0:18:46between two fourth division sides in the East Midlands.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51But the atmosphere that day was charged with tension.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54Forget Liverpool and Everton or Rangers and Celtic,
0:18:54 > 0:18:57even Real Madrid and Barcelona.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59This was different.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02The air was electric with bitterness and betrayal.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05You see, Mansfield and Chesterfield were both mining towns.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10They both relied on the coal industry for jobs and prosperity.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13You know, there was only 12 miles between them,
0:19:13 > 0:19:18but in the spring of 1984, those 12 miles yawned like a chasm.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25In March 1984, the Coal Board had announced the closure
0:19:25 > 0:19:27of 20 pits across the country.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32North Sea oil and foreign coal supplies were now cheaper
0:19:32 > 0:19:35than coal from many Britain's pits.
0:19:35 > 0:19:3820,000 miners would lose their jobs.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43The miners' union, under Arthur Scargill, called a strike.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46But Scargill refused to organise a national ballot,
0:19:46 > 0:19:50perhaps because he feared that miners in more productive collieries
0:19:50 > 0:19:52would vote no.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56Mansfield in Nottinghamshire was one of those places.
0:19:56 > 0:19:58With plentiful coal and modernised pits,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Nottinghamshire's miners were under little threat,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04so why, they asked, should they go on strike?
0:20:06 > 0:20:09By the time Chesterfield and Mansfield met on the football field,
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Britain's miners were deeply divided.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Most of Chesterfield's miners were out on strike.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Most of Mansfield's miners were still working.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22And as Mansfield's players ran out onto the pitch that day,
0:20:22 > 0:20:26the chants rolled down from the Chesterfield terraces...
0:20:26 > 0:20:27Scab.
0:20:27 > 0:20:28Scab.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30Scab.
0:20:31 > 0:20:32MUSIC: Hammer To Fall by Queen
0:20:35 > 0:20:36CROWD CHANTING
0:20:50 > 0:20:53Off the field, the mood was even uglier.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57Every morning, as Mansfield's miners turned up for work,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59they were met by flying pickets
0:20:59 > 0:21:01bussed in from Chesterfield and beyond.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06The government had quietly stockpiled coal reserves
0:21:06 > 0:21:08to keep the lights on,
0:21:08 > 0:21:12but unless coal kept on coming from Nottinghamshire's pits,
0:21:12 > 0:21:15those reserves would run out in six months.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20And that meant that Nottinghamshire was absolutely crucial.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23In effect, everything else was a sideshow,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26because if Nottinghamshire's men carried on working,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29the nation's coal reserves would never run out,
0:21:29 > 0:21:31and one day, eventually,
0:21:31 > 0:21:33the Government would win.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35So if the strike were to succeed,
0:21:35 > 0:21:40Arthur Scargill absolutely had to cut off the flow of coal
0:21:40 > 0:21:42from the Nottinghamshire pits.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47In May, Arthur Scargill came to Mansfield
0:21:47 > 0:21:49and appealed for solidarity.
0:21:50 > 0:21:55There is one rule in the whole of the trade union rule book in Britain
0:21:55 > 0:21:57that supersedes every other.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00When workers are on strike,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02you don't cross picket lines!
0:22:02 > 0:22:03CROWD CHEERS
0:22:06 > 0:22:10To Margaret Thatcher, the striking miners were the enemy within,
0:22:10 > 0:22:13but to the wives of the men on strike,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15the working miners were the real enemy.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18'All on his own.'
0:22:18 > 0:22:19Come on, spikey.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25This is the brave one, with all his windows boarded up!
0:22:27 > 0:22:28'How long is this going to go on?'
0:22:28 > 0:22:30As long as it takes.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32As long as it takes to get them out.
0:22:33 > 0:22:34Traitor, traitor, traitor...!
0:22:34 > 0:22:37But to Nottinghamshire's working miners,
0:22:37 > 0:22:39Scargill was the real traitor.
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Each area was given a choice to vote and the Notts area voted to come
0:22:45 > 0:22:47to work, so that's why we're here.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50And until they have a national ballot, we're coming to work.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52MUSIC: It Ain't Necessarily So by Bronski Beat
0:22:53 > 0:22:56The miners' strike was the longest industrial dispute
0:22:56 > 0:22:58in British history.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00It held for a year before the miners gave in.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04It is often seen as a turning point,
0:23:04 > 0:23:07a titanic personal and political showdown
0:23:07 > 0:23:10between militant socialist Arthur Scargill
0:23:10 > 0:23:12and free-market capitalist Margaret Thatcher.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18But, I'm not sure about that.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21You see, I think the key battle, the real battle,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24was among the miners themselves.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27And I think that conflict was part of a much wider and more profound
0:23:27 > 0:23:30ideological struggle.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32See, on the one hand, you had those miners who thought that
0:23:32 > 0:23:35the most important thing was loyalty to the union.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37Comradeship with your mates.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Solidarity with the British working class.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43And on the other hand, you had those miners who didn't want to be
0:23:43 > 0:23:47strong-armed into joining Arthur Scargill's revolutionary crusade,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51who wanted to put their own livelihoods and their own families first.
0:23:52 > 0:23:53And I think that tension,
0:23:53 > 0:23:57between collective loyalty and individual aspiration,
0:23:57 > 0:24:01was a faultline that ran right through '80s Britain.
0:24:02 > 0:24:03MUSIC: Big In Japan by Alphaville
0:24:04 > 0:24:08This was an age of seismic industrial upheaval,
0:24:08 > 0:24:10propelled not so much by the Thatcher government,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13but by the sheer momentum of technological change.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19This is a microchip.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21It doesn't look like much, does it?
0:24:21 > 0:24:24But what this represented was nothing short of a social,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27cultural and technological revolution.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34For some people, computers were just a gimmick.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39But the government believed they were the future.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41Yes, that's the section of the programme there...
0:24:41 > 0:24:44A few weeks after Margaret Thatcher had first won power,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48her Industry Secretary and ideological mentor,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Sir Keith Joseph, sent her this memo.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56Now, Thatcher and Joseph had come to power absolutely determined
0:24:56 > 0:24:59to roll back the state and force British industry to stand
0:24:59 > 0:25:01on its own two feet.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04But now, Joseph told her that the computer industry
0:25:04 > 0:25:06ought to be a special case.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10"It is," he wrote, "of crucial importance to our future industrial
0:25:10 > 0:25:11"and economic performance.
0:25:11 > 0:25:15"In its way, it's likely to be of the same sort of importance
0:25:15 > 0:25:17"as was the steam engine."
0:25:17 > 0:25:20So Mrs Thatcher decided not just to pour money into Britain's computer
0:25:20 > 0:25:25industry, but to try and create a nation of young programmers,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29and to do that, she put computers into schools.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39The contract to supply our nation's classrooms went, naturally,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43to a British firm, Acorn Computing.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46And the result, devised in league with Britain's public service
0:25:46 > 0:25:48broadcaster, was the BBC Micro.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54This was a computer built for programming.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58A computer to fire the imagination of Middle England.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05Now, I used to love this machine, the BBC Micro.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07Not just because we had it at school, but because this was
0:26:07 > 0:26:11the very first home computer that my parents ever bought.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13I was ten at the time and for months,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15I'd been chipping away at their resistance,
0:26:15 > 0:26:17endlessly lecturing them about it.
0:26:17 > 0:26:22Vital importance as an educational tool, without which I would be sunk
0:26:22 > 0:26:25in the harsh new world of the 1980s.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27Still, let's see if I've got the old magic.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45It might look rudimentary to you, but I'll have you know,
0:26:45 > 0:26:47this is how Bill Gates started.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56The BBC Micro faced stiff competition.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59Not least from a deceptively flimsy looking little machine
0:26:59 > 0:27:01that sold at barely half the price,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04and came with an unforgettable rubber keyboard.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10Now, this is the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13If the BBC was something of an electronic Volvo,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16then this was a bit more of an electronic Skoda.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21Still, if you were in the market for a home computer at Christmas 1984,
0:27:21 > 0:27:24the BBC would have set you back about £400,
0:27:24 > 0:27:29but the Spectrum would only have cost about £129.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32So, it's hardly surprising that, in a decade haunted by
0:27:32 > 0:27:36recession and unemployment, the Spectrum proved a tremendous hit.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38Indeed, by the middle of the 1980s,
0:27:38 > 0:27:41Sinclair had shifted almost five million of them.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43Some of them to my classmates.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47Now, did we all use our new hardware
0:27:47 > 0:27:49to write our own programmes?
0:27:49 > 0:27:51Or just to play games?
0:27:51 > 0:27:53Well, what do you think?
0:27:53 > 0:27:57MUSIC: Together In Electric Dreams by Giorgio Moroder & Philip Oakley
0:27:58 > 0:28:02Mrs Thatcher's dream of a nation of computer coders
0:28:02 > 0:28:03never quite came off,
0:28:03 > 0:28:07but the children of BBC Micro Britain did go on to develop
0:28:07 > 0:28:10some of the most successful games ever made,
0:28:10 > 0:28:13not least the best-selling Grand Theft Auto series,
0:28:13 > 0:28:17which set new standards for gameplay and graphics.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19And by the mid-1980s,
0:28:19 > 0:28:21Britain had gone computer crazy.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25'The British now have more home computers
0:28:25 > 0:28:27'than anywhere else in the world.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29'Most of the users are youngsters,
0:28:29 > 0:28:33'taking to the computer as naturally as adults now use the telephone.'
0:28:36 > 0:28:40You print into the computer directions for it to, erm,
0:28:40 > 0:28:43try and go through the maze and hit the target.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47When it comes to try to take a new idea and to get it into industry,
0:28:47 > 0:28:49the brain is at its best when you're young.
0:28:51 > 0:28:53'How does that help you with your school work?
0:28:53 > 0:28:54I don't think it does.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00Before long, the boom in the British-made home computers
0:29:00 > 0:29:01had rather fizzled out.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04By the end of the decade, both the Spectrum and the BBC were
0:29:04 > 0:29:06effectively out of date
0:29:06 > 0:29:09and by now, British consumers were turning to faster,
0:29:09 > 0:29:14flashier American models, like the Commodore Amiga or the Atari ST.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18And that, I think, told a wider and more interesting story,
0:29:18 > 0:29:20because more than almost any other nation in the world,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23Mrs Thatcher's Britain eagerly embraced
0:29:23 > 0:29:26the new era of globalisation.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29And now, in everything from computers to cookery,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32ordinary people were beginning to look outside our shores
0:29:32 > 0:29:36for entertainment and inspiration.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39MUSIC: Take My Breath Away by Berlin
0:29:42 > 0:29:46McDonald's had first come to Britain in 1974,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50but it wasn't until the early '80s that we really took the Big Mac and
0:29:50 > 0:29:51fries to our hearts -
0:29:51 > 0:29:53and our stomachs.
0:29:55 > 0:29:57Why did McDonald's strike such a chord?
0:29:57 > 0:30:00Because it was fast, convenient, colourful,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02very, very salty?
0:30:02 > 0:30:04Well, yes. But there was something more.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07McDonald's, you see, was different.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Because McDonald's, of course, was American.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13# ..place inside... #
0:30:15 > 0:30:18This was the heyday of the special relationship,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22when Britain and the United States stood shoulder-to-shoulder against
0:30:22 > 0:30:25the threat of Soviet communism.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30And although Mrs Thatcher recognised the Soviet leader,
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Mikhail Gorbachev, as a man she could do business with,
0:30:34 > 0:30:37her heart really belonged to his American counterpart...
0:30:38 > 0:30:40Ronald Reagan.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44A man with more than his fair share of old-fashioned Hollywood charm.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49We see so many things in the same way.
0:30:49 > 0:30:54We share so many of the same goals and a determination to achieve them,
0:30:54 > 0:30:57which you summed up so well - and alas,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01I cannot imitate this wonderful American-English accent -
0:31:01 > 0:31:02"You ain't seen nothing yet."
0:31:02 > 0:31:04LAUGHTER
0:31:05 > 0:31:08You are a very tough act to follow.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10LAUGHTER
0:31:10 > 0:31:13# Take my breath away... #
0:31:15 > 0:31:18To those of us who grew up in '80s Britain,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21the United States seemed richer, more glamorous
0:31:21 > 0:31:23and much, much cooler.
0:31:24 > 0:31:29Everything American appeared bigger and better, not least the shopping.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35The north-eastern town of Gateshead had been especially hard hit
0:31:35 > 0:31:39by the death of industry, but in April 1986,
0:31:39 > 0:31:42its residents were treated to their own first glimpse of Britain's
0:31:42 > 0:31:45American-style future.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49The MetroCentre was a sparkling, consumerist paradise.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53Gone were the days of taking the bus into town
0:31:53 > 0:31:55and trudging miserably through the puddles,
0:31:55 > 0:31:59bitterly regretting the fact that you'd left your umbrella at home.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03Now you could park outside and stroll contentedly under cover.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06This was shopping not as a chore to be endured,
0:32:06 > 0:32:08but as a treat to be savoured.
0:32:08 > 0:32:12At least in theory. You could spend all day here stuffing yourself in
0:32:12 > 0:32:14the luxurious food court.
0:32:14 > 0:32:16You could even get yourself a cocktail.
0:32:18 > 0:32:21And afterwards? Well, why not take in a film?
0:32:21 > 0:32:23Maybe the latest American blockbuster?
0:32:23 > 0:32:26Indiana Jones, Top Gun, Howard The Duck...
0:32:28 > 0:32:32This was the shopping experience transformed into a glossy,
0:32:32 > 0:32:33consumerist fantasy,
0:32:33 > 0:32:38transplanted into the gritty heart of the post-industrial north-east
0:32:38 > 0:32:41all the way from suburban America.
0:32:43 > 0:32:44Thank you.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48We find that people come from the greater distance to the MetroCentre
0:32:48 > 0:32:51because they know they can come and enjoy this or their children can do
0:32:51 > 0:32:53this while they go and shop.
0:32:53 > 0:32:54So it's an integration, really,
0:32:54 > 0:32:56of leisure and shopping at its highest level.
0:32:56 > 0:33:00MUSIC: Mickey by Toni Basil
0:33:00 > 0:33:03And to make the shopping experience even easier,
0:33:03 > 0:33:07the mid-'80s were boom years for easy credit.
0:33:08 > 0:33:09If you find anything in here,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12if you find a purse that's been dropped or a handbag,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16you pull it out and it's got a string of plastic credit cards in.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20So people are obviously not spending cash, they're using a credit system.
0:33:22 > 0:33:24And now the American way of life
0:33:24 > 0:33:27had even invaded the suburban living room.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32MUSIC: Theme from Dallas
0:33:32 > 0:33:36By the early 1980s, 27 million people had become
0:33:36 > 0:33:39hooked on the gloriously melodramatic world
0:33:39 > 0:33:41of the Dallas oil barons.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45Well, this has all the earmarks of one of the great nights of my life.
0:33:47 > 0:33:52Nothing brings out the best in you like other people's unhappiness.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56Chief among them was the arch antihero JR Ewing.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00A man who really knew the value of looking after number one.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02Nothing would make me happier.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04HE LAUGHS
0:34:04 > 0:34:07Where Texas lead, Hampshire naturally followed.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12Howards' Way brought a dash of glamour to Sunday evenings.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16- Oh, hello, it's Jan Howard here. - Oh, hello there.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18Ken, you're sounding a bit muffled.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21Hang on, I'll just give the receiver a bang.
0:34:22 > 0:34:23Ooh!
0:34:23 > 0:34:27This was pure Texan decadence with a south coast twist.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30Yet to some critics, our love affair with all things
0:34:30 > 0:34:33American marked what one called the end of
0:34:33 > 0:34:35our ancient and revered civilisation.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37# America... #
0:34:37 > 0:34:41And the comedians Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry seemed to agree.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47# America, America, America, America
0:34:47 > 0:34:49LAUGHTER
0:34:51 > 0:34:52# The States
0:34:52 > 0:34:54LAUGHTER
0:34:54 > 0:34:57# The States
0:34:57 > 0:34:58# The States
0:34:58 > 0:35:00# The States
0:35:02 > 0:35:04# The States
0:35:04 > 0:35:06# America
0:35:07 > 0:35:09# America... #
0:35:11 > 0:35:13LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:35:15 > 0:35:18Whether the arrival of American burgers
0:35:18 > 0:35:21and American soap operas really marked the death of our civilisation
0:35:21 > 0:35:24is, I suppose, a matter of personal taste.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28What they certainly marked, though, was the end of British uniqueness.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31In a globalised age, the idea that we could just
0:35:31 > 0:35:33seal ourselves off from the rest of the world,
0:35:33 > 0:35:37even if we wanted to, was clearly defunct.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40While most of us were very happy to embrace American food
0:35:40 > 0:35:43and American films, the new principle of openness
0:35:43 > 0:35:45brought with it a new anxiety.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52In the spring of 1983,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55BBC Two's science programme Horizon
0:35:55 > 0:35:58had carried a truly terrifying report.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02It told the story of a newly identified disease.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05'With an impaired immune system,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08'Kevin's resistance to disease is lowered.
0:36:08 > 0:36:10'His condition is called A-I-D-S.
0:36:10 > 0:36:15'AIDS. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18'It lets in secondary diseases that can kill.'
0:36:20 > 0:36:24What made it so chilling was that nobody knew quite how you caught it.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28Is it through blood?
0:36:28 > 0:36:29Is it through saliva?
0:36:29 > 0:36:31Is it through...? I don't know.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37The first AIDS victims had tended to be gay men,
0:36:37 > 0:36:40so AIDS was quickly dubbed "the gay plague".
0:36:42 > 0:36:46Remember, it was barely 20 years since the decriminalisation of
0:36:46 > 0:36:49homosexuality and now, once again,
0:36:49 > 0:36:52Britain's gay community found itself under attack.
0:36:59 > 0:37:01I've lost my job.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03Apparently, where I was working,
0:37:03 > 0:37:05they said they'd had customers ringing up saying
0:37:05 > 0:37:07they'd got a gay chef working for them
0:37:07 > 0:37:09and has the gay chef got AIDS?
0:37:11 > 0:37:16Soon, some MPs were even calling for homosexuality to be re-criminalised
0:37:16 > 0:37:20and for the police to shut down gay clubs.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24If I make it more difficult for them to behave in this way,
0:37:24 > 0:37:30to go into the pubs or the gay clubs, I think that is
0:37:30 > 0:37:32quite useful, and although it may of course
0:37:32 > 0:37:34drive some of this underground,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37it makes it less likely that they can spread a disease.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42But even as the headlines were attacking Britain's gay men,
0:37:42 > 0:37:46it was becoming increasingly obvious that AIDS was far from being
0:37:46 > 0:37:49an exclusively gay disease.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52We were all potential casualties.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55Young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59Today, when AIDS is far better understood
0:37:59 > 0:38:02and where most of us talk about it much more openly,
0:38:02 > 0:38:05it's easy to forget the stigma, the sensationalism,
0:38:05 > 0:38:09even the shame with which it was associated in the mid-'80s.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12But this happens to be a story with a hero.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16One man who understood the seriousness of the threat
0:38:16 > 0:38:19and was determined to do something about it.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23And he turned out to be the unlikeliest person imaginable.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29Norman Fowler was Mrs Thatcher's health secretary.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32On the surface, with his slick suit and Brylcreemed hair,
0:38:32 > 0:38:36he seemed the archetypal Thatcherite minister.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39In 1986, Fowler went to San Francisco,
0:38:39 > 0:38:43where AIDS had struck first and most devastatingly.
0:38:43 > 0:38:44And he returned determined
0:38:44 > 0:38:47that nothing like it must happen in Britain.
0:38:48 > 0:38:53Over the next few years, the priority must be public education,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56it must be getting the message through to the general public
0:38:56 > 0:39:00and, perhaps most of all, to those groups most at risk
0:39:00 > 0:39:01about the dangers of AIDS itself.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07Fowler designed a public relations strategy
0:39:07 > 0:39:09on a genuinely national scale.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16'There is now a danger that has become a threat to us all.'
0:39:16 > 0:39:18He masterminded a deliberately hard-hitting
0:39:18 > 0:39:21TV advertising campaign...
0:39:21 > 0:39:23'It is a deadly disease and there is no known cure.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29'If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31'So don't die of ignorance.'
0:39:33 > 0:39:37..accompanied by some astonishingly direct leaflets.
0:39:37 > 0:39:43This is a mock-up of the front cover, and as I say,
0:39:43 > 0:39:47that will be going out to every household in the country.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53Norman Fowler's leaflet wasn't just forceful, it was downright explicit.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57You see, Fowler and his officials believed that if you really wanted
0:39:57 > 0:39:58to educate the public about AIDS,
0:39:58 > 0:40:02then you couldn't spare their feelings. You had to be blunt.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05You had to get down to, as it were, the nuts and bolts.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09So the leaflet tells you exactly what AIDS is and how you get it.
0:40:09 > 0:40:11It talks about your number of partners,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14whether or not you wear a condom, oral sex, anal sex,
0:40:14 > 0:40:19and all this without so much as a hint of moralising or disapproval.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22Now, by '80s standards, all this was pretty strong stuff.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24Too strong for Mrs Thatcher,
0:40:24 > 0:40:28who was worried about its effect on impressionable teenage minds.
0:40:28 > 0:40:30But it was, I think, to his credit
0:40:30 > 0:40:33that Norman Fowler stuck to his guns.
0:40:34 > 0:40:39Radio 1, meanwhile, launched its own campaign to reach younger listeners.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45'Radio one!' AIDS. Frightening, isn't it?
0:40:45 > 0:40:49You just can't tell who's got the AIDS virus and who hasn't.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51Certainly not by looking at them.
0:40:51 > 0:40:52The problem, of course,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55is that many people didn't want Government leaflets
0:40:55 > 0:40:59or BBC disc jockeys lecturing them, or indeed lecturing their children,
0:40:59 > 0:41:02about how to put on a condom,
0:41:02 > 0:41:05let alone about the finer points of oral and anal sex.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07And this is a condom.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11It is rolled over the man's hard penis
0:41:11 > 0:41:13before sexual intercourse begins.
0:41:17 > 0:41:22Despite the objections, the AIDS information campaigns hit home.
0:41:22 > 0:41:27Within just three years, AIDS diagnoses were in steep decline.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30The campaign had made it possible for the British public to talk about
0:41:30 > 0:41:34AIDS and about sex in an entirely new way.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37# I bought you drinks, I brought you flowers
0:41:37 > 0:41:39# I read you books and talked for hours
0:41:39 > 0:41:42# Every day, so many drinks Such pretty flowers, so tell me
0:41:42 > 0:41:44# What have I, what have I
0:41:44 > 0:41:48# What have I done to deserve this? #
0:41:48 > 0:41:52But challenging the prejudice against people with AIDS was a very
0:41:52 > 0:41:56different matter. And it was a very different public figure who did most
0:41:56 > 0:42:00to demonstrate the power of human compassion.
0:42:03 > 0:42:04In the late 1980s,
0:42:04 > 0:42:10this clinic in east London became the first hospice in Europe entirely
0:42:10 > 0:42:14dedicated to caring for patients with AIDS-related illnesses.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16Now, at the time, that made it
0:42:16 > 0:42:19the target of considerable local suspicion, but then one day,
0:42:19 > 0:42:22the most photographed woman in the world
0:42:22 > 0:42:23came walking through the doors.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26# I'm so in love with you
0:42:26 > 0:42:30# I hear you calling... #
0:42:30 > 0:42:32And to the press and public alike,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36her first visit here was nothing short of a sensation.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40# Give a little respect to... #
0:42:40 > 0:42:43'Although the unit provides care for the terminally ill,
0:42:43 > 0:42:47'the cheerful atmosphere emphasised that both staff and patients regard
0:42:47 > 0:42:50'this as a place for living, not dying.'
0:42:52 > 0:42:57Princess Diana came to Mildmay 17 times before her untimely death.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03If you can give an AIDS patient back his will to live,
0:43:03 > 0:43:07then I think you've achieved one of the greatest gifts
0:43:07 > 0:43:09you can give any human being.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14Remember that this was a time when many people were frightened even to
0:43:14 > 0:43:16touch patients with AIDS.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20So the spectacle of Princess Diana coming here
0:43:20 > 0:43:24in full view of the TV cameras and actually hugging people with AIDS
0:43:24 > 0:43:27could hardly have been more powerful.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30It might have taken Norman Fowler's leaflets
0:43:30 > 0:43:33to change the way people thought about AIDS,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36but I rather suspect that it took a member of the Royal family
0:43:36 > 0:43:39to change the way that people felt about it.
0:43:43 > 0:43:48The panic about the advent of AIDS reflected a wider anxiety about the
0:43:48 > 0:43:50shifting landscape of the mid-'80s.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53MUSIC: Mad World by Tears for Fears
0:43:55 > 0:43:58Britain was very obviously changing.
0:43:58 > 0:44:01Gay men and lesbians were becoming more visible
0:44:01 > 0:44:03and ethnic minorities more vocal.
0:44:08 > 0:44:13And one group of left-wing idealists was particularly keen to celebrate
0:44:13 > 0:44:16the new age of diversity and multiculturalism.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19Their critics called them "the loony left".
0:44:23 > 0:44:25If they had a headquarters,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28it was here on the South Bank of the River Thames,
0:44:28 > 0:44:31home to the Greater London Council, or GLC,
0:44:31 > 0:44:35led by a young, left-wing firebrand called Ken Livingstone.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41The newspapers, of course, couldn't get enough of Red Ken,
0:44:41 > 0:44:44his colourful allies and their crazy antics.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48Most famously, they accused London's schools of banning the nursery rhyme
0:44:48 > 0:44:50Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,
0:44:50 > 0:44:53a claim which turned out to be almost completely untrue.
0:44:53 > 0:44:54I think that's ridiculous.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56My mother's been singing it before me,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58they've been singing it for generations.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02And it's ridiculous to decide just now that it's racialist.
0:45:03 > 0:45:07But not all the stories were similarly exaggerated or invented.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09Kennington schoolchildren were banned
0:45:09 > 0:45:12from taking part in competitive sport
0:45:12 > 0:45:16and even taught how to write protest letters in their English classes.
0:45:16 > 0:45:20And Lambeth Council banned the word "family",
0:45:20 > 0:45:23because it was, of course, discriminatory.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29And there was plenty of money to back up the earnest rhetoric.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Councils offered special funds for businesses run by black residents.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35They handed out money to women's groups
0:45:35 > 0:45:38and encouraged gay and lesbian activists
0:45:38 > 0:45:41to hold events using council facilities.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45Since Labour had already lost two elections to Margaret Thatcher,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48the party leadership were understandably anxious
0:45:48 > 0:45:51about how all this would play with the public.
0:45:51 > 0:45:53Alas, most people were less than overwhelmed
0:45:53 > 0:45:58by the left's new-found commitment to diversity and multiculturalism.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02The truth is that most people either howled with outrage
0:46:02 > 0:46:04or howled with laughter.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10The alternative comedians of The Comic Strip
0:46:10 > 0:46:12had tremendous fun with the loony left.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15They made an entire film about the GLC
0:46:15 > 0:46:17with Robbie Coltrane
0:46:17 > 0:46:20playing Charles Bronson playing Ken Livingstone.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25For those of you that don't know, my name's Ken Livingstone.
0:46:25 > 0:46:26And I'm looking for councillors
0:46:26 > 0:46:29who ain't afraid to get their hands a little dirty.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32You, I want you to take care of the black minorities.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34Set up theatres, sports centres.
0:46:34 > 0:46:36- Yes, sir.- And equalise some women.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40You, start a new movement, call it Gay Pride.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42Let's get those gays out of the closet.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45- Oh, yes, sir!- All right, let's move it out!
0:46:45 > 0:46:48- Come on, let's shake this city up! - Whoo!
0:46:49 > 0:46:51Meanwhile, Labour activists
0:46:51 > 0:46:55were very publicly at each other's throats.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58It's not the media who says we've got to ban Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and
0:46:58 > 0:47:01ban wendy houses, and all the other sort of nonsense
0:47:01 > 0:47:04that takes away the attention from the dole queues in the north.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06If you believe that, Joe, then, I'm sorry,
0:47:06 > 0:47:10you probably will believe anything that you see in the newspapers.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12No council has banned Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15You tell me the story and I will tell you it is a lie.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20Loony as the loony left may have seemed at the time,
0:47:20 > 0:47:25its enthusiasm for diversity looks rather less outlandish today.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27And behind all the controversy was the plain,
0:47:27 > 0:47:32unarguable reality of Britain's changing racial and ethnic make-up.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37By the 1980s, a new generation of black and Asian children,
0:47:37 > 0:47:38born right here in Britain,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42were coming of age and they were demanding to be heard.
0:47:42 > 0:47:45And one voice in particular stood out.
0:47:45 > 0:47:50At the beginning of the 1980s, a young man called Hanif Kureishi
0:47:50 > 0:47:53was hard at work on his first screenplay.
0:47:54 > 0:47:56It's the story of a young Pakistani man
0:47:56 > 0:47:59who falls in love with a white street punk
0:47:59 > 0:48:03and it tackles some of the most controversial issues of the decade,
0:48:03 > 0:48:07from racist hate crime to interracial homosexuality.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11All in all, then, hardly Hollywood blockbuster material.
0:48:11 > 0:48:15And on top of all that, it had a really weird title.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30I've had a vision of how our place can be.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32Why don't people like launderettes?
0:48:32 > 0:48:34Because they're like toilets.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36This could be a Ritz among launderettes.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40A launderette as big as the Ritz!
0:48:41 > 0:48:42Oh, yes.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47My Beautiful Launderette was remarkably explicit,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50breaking one taboo after another.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53Many Asian viewers were more shocked than most.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57What the hell are you doing?
0:48:57 > 0:48:59- Sunbathing?- Asleep, uncle.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01We were shagged out.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04Much of the appeal of My Beautiful Launderette comes,
0:49:04 > 0:49:06I think, from the fact that
0:49:06 > 0:49:09although the film's characters are definitely outsiders,
0:49:09 > 0:49:11the script never presents them as losers.
0:49:11 > 0:49:16As Hanif Kureishi himself put it, this was a new idea of being Asian.
0:49:16 > 0:49:20Not your traditional notion of victims cowering in the corner.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26My Beautiful Launderette was far from being a box office hit,
0:49:26 > 0:49:28but the critics loved it.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31And Kureishi's script was nominated for an Oscar.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35It marked the arrival of a new wave of black and Asian voices
0:49:35 > 0:49:37in our popular culture.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39Where the hell are you going?!
0:49:43 > 0:49:45But I think it was Britain's sporting heroes
0:49:45 > 0:49:49who did most to challenge the prejudices of the past.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52- COMMENTATOR:- That's a fabulous individual goal.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58The '80s was a golden age of televised sport,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00and for telly addicts like me,
0:50:00 > 0:50:04it was through sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup
0:50:04 > 0:50:08that we discovered our sense of patriotism and national identity.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11But by the mid-1980s, the people that we were cheering
0:50:11 > 0:50:15looked very different from the sporting icons of the past.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19Many of these new patriotic heroes were the children of men and women
0:50:19 > 0:50:24who had come to Britain from the Commonwealth in the '50s and '60s.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27And to the tens of millions of us cheering them on,
0:50:27 > 0:50:31they weren't immigrants, they were just British.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35There was the Olympic javelin champion, Tessa Sanderson,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39boxing's amiable giant, Frank Bruno,
0:50:41 > 0:50:43football's extravagantly gifted John Barnes...
0:50:48 > 0:50:53..and then, of course, there was the mighty Olympian, Daley Thompson.
0:50:53 > 0:50:55# Ain't nothing gonna break my stride
0:50:55 > 0:50:58# Nobody gonna slow me down
0:50:58 > 0:51:02# Oh, no, I've got to keep on moving
0:51:02 > 0:51:04# Ain't nothing gonna break my stride
0:51:04 > 0:51:07# I'm running and I won't touch ground
0:51:07 > 0:51:11# Oh, no, I've got to keep on moving... #
0:51:11 > 0:51:14'Daley Thompson has proved yet again that he's the world's greatest
0:51:14 > 0:51:16all-round athlete. He already holds two Olympic gold medals,
0:51:16 > 0:51:20now he has three Commonwealth gold medals.
0:51:20 > 0:51:21Thompson wasn't just a winner,
0:51:21 > 0:51:26he smashed the world decathlon record no fewer than four times.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29By the mid-'80s, he was a household name.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32And for me, he's probably the greatest sportsman
0:51:32 > 0:51:34that Britain has ever produced,
0:51:34 > 0:51:37combining supreme athletic prowess with a cool,
0:51:37 > 0:51:39devil-may-care spirit.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42What I really need is some really good class competition
0:51:42 > 0:51:45to bring the best out of me, because I'm sure that I'm capable of
0:51:45 > 0:51:47breaking the world record at the moment.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50It's just a case of getting some nice weather
0:51:50 > 0:51:52and some really good opposition.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55Daley Thompson is, I think, a richly symbolic figure.
0:51:55 > 0:51:59Born to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother,
0:51:59 > 0:52:01he was sent as a boy to an institution
0:52:01 > 0:52:04for difficult and disruptive children.
0:52:04 > 0:52:05So in other circumstances,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08he could easily have ended up on the scrapheap.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11But what he became was not just a sporting hero,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15but the swaggering standard bearer for a new country.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19More tolerant, more racially diverse, and yet, nonetheless,
0:52:19 > 0:52:21unmistakably British.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Around the world, though,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34one person above all embodied Britain in the mid-'80s.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37Margaret Thatcher was probably the most influential peacetime
0:52:37 > 0:52:40Prime Minister in our modern history.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44But things could have been very different.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55On the night of the 12th of October 1984,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57the Conservatives were here in Brighton
0:52:57 > 0:52:59for their annual party conference.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01In the Grand Hotel over there,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05the Tory bigwigs danced and drank into the small hours.
0:53:05 > 0:53:07In the Prime Minister's suite,
0:53:07 > 0:53:10Mrs Thatcher was, of course, still working.
0:53:10 > 0:53:16The time was 2:54 in the morning and she reached for one last paper -
0:53:16 > 0:53:19and it was then that the bomb went off.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25'The front of the hotel was blown apart.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29'Stone and glass and debris was lasted across Brighton front.'
0:53:30 > 0:53:34# Such a shame to believe
0:53:34 > 0:53:36# In escape... #
0:53:36 > 0:53:40The target, of course, was the Prime Minister herself.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46The IRA had been bombing Britain for more than a decade,
0:53:46 > 0:53:50but never before had they struck such a devastating blow at the heart
0:53:50 > 0:53:51of the political establishment.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57'The Prime Minister, along with the home and foreign secretaries,
0:53:57 > 0:53:59'were all in first-floor rooms.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02'The 20-pound bomb was planted in a fifth-floor bedroom.'
0:54:02 > 0:54:06You hear about these atrocities, these bombs,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08but you don't expect them to happen to you.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13But...life must go on, as usual.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22Now, whatever you think of Mrs Thatcher,
0:54:22 > 0:54:24one thing is undeniable.
0:54:24 > 0:54:26She was a fighter.
0:54:26 > 0:54:28And that morning, Margaret Thatcher,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31the Prime Minister who defined herself through conflict,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34woke up as usual, tidied her hair,
0:54:34 > 0:54:36put on her trademark blue suit
0:54:36 > 0:54:39and walked out onto the conference stage,
0:54:39 > 0:54:43a picture of defiance, to take her place on the moral high ground.
0:54:45 > 0:54:50'A few hours later, Mrs Thatcher was back in the hall for her big speech.
0:54:50 > 0:54:51'Security men were everywhere.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56'As Mrs Thatcher declared her defiance of the bombers.'
0:54:56 > 0:55:01The fact that we are gathered here now, shocked,
0:55:01 > 0:55:05but composed and determined,
0:55:05 > 0:55:08is a sign not only that this attack has failed,
0:55:08 > 0:55:15but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40Of course, party leaders always get standing ovations at their annual
0:55:40 > 0:55:43conferences. But this was different.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Because for once, this was an ovation that resounded
0:55:46 > 0:55:48well beyond the conference hall.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51Even Mrs Thatcher's bitterest enemies,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54even people who opposed everything she stood for
0:55:54 > 0:55:58agreed that this was her finest hour.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02This Government will not weaken.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07This nation will meet that challenge.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11Democracy will prevail.
0:56:20 > 0:56:25The Brighton bomb went off just two years after the Falklands conflict.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28Margaret Thatcher was at the height of her powers.
0:56:29 > 0:56:34And so it's tempting to wonder just how different Britain might be today
0:56:34 > 0:56:35if the IRA had succeeded.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40Maybe Britain would still be a country of mighty unions
0:56:40 > 0:56:44and flourishing coalmines. An island fortress,
0:56:44 > 0:56:48holding out against the advance of technology
0:56:48 > 0:56:50and the march of globalisation.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55But then again, maybe not.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59Now, of course Margaret Thatcher was the political face of the 1980s,
0:56:59 > 0:57:03the strident embodiment of an age of conflict.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05But I think the deeper changes,
0:57:05 > 0:57:10the social and economic and cultural changes that really mattered,
0:57:10 > 0:57:13those had been gathering pace for decades.
0:57:13 > 0:57:19Foreign imports, home computers, sexual tolerance, ethnic diversity.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22Those things were always coming.
0:57:22 > 0:57:24Margaret Thatcher or no Margaret Thatcher,
0:57:24 > 0:57:27the sheer momentum had become unstoppable.
0:57:27 > 0:57:32And I think it was in the 1980s that we at last understood that the days
0:57:32 > 0:57:37of splendid isolation, of holding out against the tide of change,
0:57:37 > 0:57:39those days were over.
0:57:42 > 0:57:48Next time: '80s Britain embraces money markets and mobiles,
0:57:48 > 0:57:53our continental cousins, and the cult of Gazzamania.
0:57:56 > 0:57:59MUSIC: The Sun Always Shines On TV by A-Ha