The BEST episodes directed by Ian Lilley
#1 - Scotland and the Klan
BBC Documentaries - Season 2016 - Episode 312
Scotland has exported many great things to the rest of the world, and people like Neil Oliver have often celebrated the disproportionate impact of its ideas and energy on places like America. The role of Scots in shaping the concept of the American Dream is a story often told, but could Scottish settlers have also had a hand in America's racist nightmare? Neil Oliver travels over 2,000 miles to examine links between racism today in the Deep South and the Scottish settlers that first occupied it. Throughout the 18th century, hundreds of thousands of Scots emigrated to America, and some believe that it was their wariness and moral certainty that significantly shaped the south into an isolated, fearful society that easily took to slave-owning when the opportunity came. Walter Scott, the creator of a romantic vision of the 'Old Country' is blamed for reinforcing their fantasy world of Georgian gentility. When that world was threatened, the southern states opted for civil war rather than give it up. After the devastating war, attitudes in the south were hardened by defeat and fear of the now-freed slaves. When six Scottish-American former Confederate officers formed a fraternal society, clan turned to Klan. The oldest and most feared racist hate group in America - the Ku Klux Klan - was born. Now, well over 800 hate groups stalk the United States, and Neil finishes his journey by visiting the Neo-Confederate League of the South. The League advocates a return to a separate southern society run by what they call 'Anglo Celts', and Neil discovers that here Scottish-ness still abides and that attitudes don't seem to have changed much in the last 200-300 years.
#2 - Clydebank Blitz
BBC Documentaries - Season 2011 - Episode 286
The Blitz on the industrial town of Clydebank, seven miles from the centre of Glasgow, was one of the most intense, deadly and remarkably unknown of the war. Well over 1,200 people were killed in the Clydeside area and at least the same again were seriously injured by the bombing on the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941. The destruction in Clydebank was so severe that only seven properties were left undamaged by the bombing and the population was reduced from almost 60,000 to little more than 2,000. The awful truth about the scale of destruction and the number of casualties never hit the headlines as wartime censorship meant that the whole event was effectively 'hushed up'. But the stories still live on in the minds of some of the children that survived the raid and in The Clydebank Blitz, they tell their own harrowing stories of what was one of Britain's worst bombing raids and Scotland's biggest civilian disaster.
#3 - The Angry Brigade
BBC Documentaries - Season 2002 - Episode 28
30 years ago Britain's longest political trial ended at the Old Bailey with 10 year jail sentences for four young revolutionary anarchists. They were members of the Angry Brigade; a clandestine urban guerrilla group who, for a few short years in the early 1970s, went on a bombing spree that brought terror to the heart of the British political establishment. Targets included senior Government ministers, captains of industry and top ranking policeman. The Angry Brigade is a dramatised documentary which reconstructs the key moments and events of the time told through the eyes of one of the main members of the group. The programme explores how these largely middle class students made the journey from hippie idealists to urban terrorists and the police investigation that finally cracked them.
#4 - Burns in the USA
BBC Documentaries - Season 2017 - Episode 37
Robert Burns was well aware of the revolution taking place across the Atlantic as he grew up. The poet was inspired. And America was to be inspired by him. From Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman to Bob Dylan, some of the most significant figures in American politics and culture have cited Burns as an influence. During key moments in the nation's history these figures brought Burns's words to the fore. The Bard hit home too with America's public, beginning with the ex-pats he reminded of home. Those ex-pats were followed to America by two other Scots who also spread the word of Burns. The industrialist Andrew Carnegie keenly spread the word of Burns across the country. Singer Jean Redpath spread Burns's music within the folk revival in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Burns became a '19th-century Elvis' in the States, and his image was used to sell everything from cigars and tobacco to beer and fizzy pop. Today his impact upon America is further illustrated by memorials, not least in Atlanta, where a replica of Burns Cottage sits as home to the local Burns Club. Members of the club sing Burns's most famous song, Auld Lang Syne, a bona fide piece of American culture, which Americans have identified with New Year's Eve since Guy Lombardo began singing it on radio in the first part of the 20th century. It has become even more iconic since Hollywood adopted it in films such as It's a Wonderful Life. Robert Burns never visited the United States, but whether in the north or south, east or west, its people have identified with the Bard and his works.
#5 - Monte Cassino: The Soldiers' Story
Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries - Season 2004 - Episode 12
An account of the infamous Second World War battle, at the peak of which Allied troops laid siege to a medieval castle in Italy for five days in 1944. The conflict in Italy was controversial from the start, with the Allies divided over the importance and purpose of the campaign, while Hitler felt that victory here would dissuade his enemies from their grander schemes. Tactical errors led to a devastating loss of life before a truce was agreed. The accounts of veterans from both sides are used to create a balanced picture of the conflict, with members of the German First Parachute Regiment and the British 1/4 Essex sharing their memories.