Successful young novelist Robert Wilson goes home to Belfast after six years of voluntary exile in England. By turns hilarious, miserable, angry and hopeful his 'diary' is a refreshingly honest account of his tribulations as he asks himself and his friends, 'Is there a worthwhile future in Belfast?'

A young Londoner, Lisa Chidell, makes an emotionally draining visit to Calcutta, where she becomes immersed in the struggles of the Marie Stopes family planning agency which is facing an explosion in the number of births.

In her adult life, artist Willa Carroll has battled severe emotional problems, the result of the physical abuse that she suffered in her American childhood. In this remarkable diary, she returns to her home town with a camera, to confront the past.

Spike Ambrose and Clinton Smith both live in a hostel for homeless teenagers in London's run-down King's Cross area. Their frank record of contemporary teenage life, both inside and outside the hostel, is by turns provocative, comical and revealing. And it is always honest.

David Francis's plan to record family relationships changed when his grandmother became ill. His video diary became a difficult portrayal of the effects of bereavement on both his family and himself.

Kevin Allen, a 28-year-old actor and long time 'student of the game', has made a unique fan's-eye view of the 1990 World Cup football finals in Italy in this 'road movie'. Armed only with a small video camera, he set out to travel and live on the campsites with Bobby Robson's unwanted and unloved army of England supporters. What emerged is an epic of chaotic wit, intrigue, fear and despair, and a deep affection for the game.

Stephen Hawthorne 's parents discovered he was gay two years ago. Rather than face them he left home. In his absorbing and humorous diary he tries to open a dialogue with his parents by involving them.

Artist Vicky Hawkins and marble mason Tony Chircop had lived in London's East End all their lives. When, last year in France, they discovered the farmhouse of their dreams, they decided to sell Vicky's studio in London and move to start a new life. Their diary records the joys and traumas they experienced as their dream became a nightmare.

Jo Spence discovered she had lymphatic leukaemia, and possibly the return of the cancer she thought she conquered eight years ago. Until then, she and her brother Mike Clode , who lives in Devon, had had only a sporadic relationship. When he heard the news, he sent her a self-made video, wishing her strength. Thus began an extraordinary journey which eventually brought them closer in adversity.

Jack Murton is serving a 12-year prison sentence for armed robbery. Destined to a lifetime pattern of crime and prison, his outlook was challenged by the suicide of a close friend in his cell at Maidstone Prison and Jack's subsequent move to Blantyre House. There, surrounded by long-term prisoners and armed with a video camera, he attempts to understand and explain himself and his unusual surroundings.

Photojournalist Nick Danziger is no stranger to the horrific suffering and imagery of war. Two years ago in Kabul, Afghanistan he discovered a group of orphans, abandoned in a derelict asylum, growing up among chained inmates. He resolved then to try and have them removed to a safer, more secure environment. His video diary is the remarkable story of what happened when he returned to negotiate the children's release, and is a shocking portrait of a city under siege and devastated by a forgotten war.

As a young Brazilian film-maker, Sergio Goldenberg is normally concerned with serious issues such as the rainforest or street kids; but for his video diary he points the camera at his own family in Rio de Janeiro: a psychoanalyst, an architect, a doctor, a computer analyst and an engineer - in his eyes, an ordinary middle class Jewish Brazilian family. Yet, with humour and irony, he provides an insight into his family relationships.

Fritz Joubert and his black British wife Jenni left London to try starting a new life in South Africa. Fritz had fled his country six years ago to avoid being conscripted into the South African Defence Force. His return could lead to imprisonment; certainly he would have to face his father who had disowned him because of his marriage. Their diary records the problems they face as they decide if a 'new' South Africa is to be their chosen home.

Steve Cribb is an active campaigner for Civil Rights. He is also disabled and lives his life with the help of a team of volunteers in London. For three months, he recorded his day-to-day experiences - with dramatic results. An intimate and funny account, which centres on his arrest by the Metropolitan Police.

When photographer Mirella Ricciardi travelled to the Brazilian rainforest to capture images of its endangered people, she developed an intriguing relationship with her young assistant Sofia.

Justice Sucks is 16-year-old Vonnie's story. At 12, she was taken into care by the social services after being abused by her stepfather. Thus began an unhappy journey through a succession of children's homes. Vonnie uses her diary to expose her own pain and to highlight the inadequacies of the system.

Seventeen-year-old Chris Needham is Loughborough's leading heavy-metal philosopher. He's putting together a band - but Manslaughter's bassist has no bass, the drummer can't play and Chris's mum says he's got to be in bed by nine o'clock. His confident public face often collapses, leaving him depressed, confiding in the video camera. Hilarious but touching, his diary is the inside story of so many bored and energetic youths who hang around the shopping arcades and dream of becoming rock stars.

Aged 13, Daniel Moss thinks life is too short to wait for adulthood before starting on the ladder to success. His unrelenting sprint on the path to greatness leaves a trail of exhausted parents and relatives in its wake. But he also has a bar mitzvah to get through, a stage play to write and direct, and school exams to take. Daniel's parents are divorced, but he maintains a close relationship with both of them, offering a unique view of modern family life from the perspective of a child in the middle. Fast and funny, Daniel's video diary keeps pace with the breathless routine of his life as a young Jewish boy - under pressure, and frustrated by the slow adult world.

Jennifer is 15 and desperately wants to be "a normal teenage girl", but she has what she declares to be a disadvantage - her mother is severely disabled with multiple sclerosis. She loves her mother, but is sometimes frustrated by having to be a carer instead of carefree like her friends. In her diary, Jennifer examines this conflict of emotions, and her camera becomes a friend and confidant.

Julie is severely anorexic and lives with five other anorexic girls in a special home. Her camera is her intimate and only friend, to which she reveals her life with shocking honesty. Motivated by a desperation for other people to understand her illness, Julie is determined to hide nothing and spare nobody's feelings, especially her own.

For Ben May , living in Peckham and boxing mad, adolescence is not an angst-ridden phase full of problems, it is simply an extended training session on the road to a professional boxing career. At the age of 15, he has already been boxing for seven years and is the British ABA champion at his weight. For him there is no dilemma - boxing is much more than a punch-up, it is a highly developed skill which demands dedication. It also represents his only chance to "earn bundles".

At 13, Rachel has been a traveller most of her life. She has never been to school, and her home is wherever the old converted coaches and tepees happen to be. Her mother is part of the more "conventional" travelling community, but Rachel is drawn towards the New Age lifestyle, with its raves and festivals. Suspended between two worlds, she uses her video diary to search for an identity she can call her own.

While in Haiti during the 1987 election, Geoffrey Smith and a friend stumbled across a horrific massacre at a polling station. A gunman returned to the scene and opened fire, killing the man in front of him and shooting Geoffrey through the leg. Ever since the shooting, Geoffrey has been plagued by nightmares and fear, and earlier this year he decided to return to Haiti to find the man who shot him, hoping that this may be the key to his recovery. He arrives to find Haiti living under an international trade embargo; violence, fear and oppression are rife under the brutal military junta. Despite his friends' warnings, Geoffrey braves fear, intimidation and silence in his search. He makes friends with a voodoo priest who tries to persuade him to pursue a more Haitian solution-to his problem by immersing himself in the culture and voodoo religion.

At the age of 28, Steve Feltham was dissatisfied with his life and work installing burglar alarms in Dorset. When a friend asked him what he would really like to do, he replied, "Find the Loch Ness monster." He sold his home and business to finance an indefinite vigil on the shores of Loch Ness, bought a caravan, and set off for Scotland to be a full-time monster hunter. When he arrived on the banks of the loch, Steve realised he had a few tests to pass if he was to be accepted as a resident hunter. Not the least of these was surviving a hard Highland winter, which helped to gain him the respect of the locals. His dream of escaping the rat race is frequently shattered by the arrival of TV crews, April Fool jokers, and David Bellamy.

Last year Edel O'Brien went to Russia as unpaid chaperone to nine Irish teenage girls beginning their first term at the Perm Ballet School. With no school lessons or activities set up for the girls, and virtually no contact with the Irish organisers, Edel's job soon becomes a nightmare of chaos and frustration. Struggling to look after the group, whose major preoccupations are Russian boys and chocolate, she tries to combat their boredom and homesickness. Meanwhile, the ballet school seems totally unprepared for its western pupils and more interested in the money they are paying than their dancing abilities.

After 12 years, singer and Elvis impersonator Scott Davis feels trapped and disillusioned by the pub and club circuit of the north east. He rebels against his agent and, in true Hollywood style, books himself a mini-tour in Orlando, Florida. The fabulous reception he receives from the audiences there give him a tantalising glimpse of another world. Back home in England life seems even harder to take as the recession hits the entertainment business.

All her life, Mjka Scott has battled with her sexual identity. As Michael she was a truck driver, a stuntman and an actor. She married and became a father but finally decided to become fully what she always believed she was - a woman. Enter Mjka, a flamboyant trans-sexual actress and model. After years of hormone treatment and cosmetic surgery she prepares herself for the final operation. First she has to live as a woman for two years and convince her psychiatrist that she is ready for the point of no return.

Rural GP Dr Ylli Hasani risked imprisonment in totalitarian Albania by listening to the BBC World Service to keep up to date with world events, especially English football. His film is the first programme to portray in depth the lives of ordinary Albanians as they live through massive social upheaval. Hasani tries to leave his country to work in the west, but his first visit to London is to supervise the completion of his film - and to try to meet some of his football idols, particularly Gary Lineker.

In 1990, Willa Woolston returned to America to persuade her sisters to join with her in uncovering a buried family history of violence inflicted on them by their stepmother. The video diary she made, My Demons, treated the subject of extreme child abuse with honesty and shocking detail. In her second film, Willa revisits her family in Philadelphia to find out what effects those dreadful secrets have had on their lives, and while there, she discovers that her stepmother still has the power to disrupt the family. Armed with the knowledge that abusers have themselves often been abused, Willa determines to find out more about her stepmother's past.

The controversial situation of the Jewish settlers in Palestine (beyond the "green line"), is represented through the everyday life of the Oppenheim family. The action goes back 15 years before the 1992 Israeli legislative election.

Finding herself pregnant at 14, Natalie never even thought about having an abortion. Instead she set out to live up to her responsibility with the support of her boyfriend and family. But things aren't going as smoothly as she hoped as she fights to keep her young family together, and living in one crowded room of a council flat doesn't make life any easier.

David Antunes "Cheaptalk", 13, and Valter Antunes "Blinker-Blinker", 15, are part of a family of musicians who play the clubs and cafes of the thriving Portuguese community in London's Brixton and Vauxhall areas. Despite the frustration of having to go to school, the boys still manage to have a hectic time with their video camera.

At 13, Polly is a bright and articulate girl who leads a normal teenage life but develops an extreme terror of school. Confused, she searches for a sympathetic environment in which she can learn. Her diary offers an insight into the life of a teenager impatient with adolescence and is a sensitive record of her desperate attempts to adjust.

Anyha is 12. She lives in Bristol with her single-parent mum, is mad on sport and dreams of Olympic stardom. She also wants to go on holiday with her mother but that's not easy on income support. Once the idea has grown it becomes imperative that they should have a holiday and somehow the money has to be found. Her diary offers an insight into the mind of a young girl, a child on the verge of adolescence. It is the philosophy of life according to Anyha: Clearasil, The jungle Book, sport, death, Jesus and Baywatch.

Gabriel Davies dreams of surfing in Hawaii but has to make do with the polluted waves off England's north-east coast. But now he has an unexpected invitation to compete in South Africa. His video diary captures the struggle to balance his sporting passion with the need to get his A-levels as insurance for the future.

Josephine Okelo lives in Nairobi, Kenya, with her wealthy family. At 17, feeling the need to establish her own identity, she leapt at the chance of a place at Marlborough College in England. Her film records the experience of her first year. She was amazed by the freedom she found there, but was dismayed by how little anyone knew about Africa and how much prejudice she had to overcome. This made her question some of her own attitudes, especially to the hundreds of thousands of Somalian refugees living in camps in Kenya. During her Easter holidays she set out to meet some of these refugees.

Miner's wife Brenda Nixon uncovers the effects, both dramatic and more intimate, of the recent pit closures on herself, her marriage and her children. Her routine life as a housewife and mother is thrown into turmoil when she decides to fight for her family's future. Her passion and commitment defy apathy, violence, police arrest and exhaustion as she struggles through the cynicism of politics. Her diary is a moving tribute to a woman who fights from the heart.

A mother records with uncompromising honesty the end of the life of her 4-year-old son. Aged 10 months, Tom was diagnosed as suffering from Tay Sachs disease and given only a few years to live under constant care. Christine decided to make her diary because she wanted as many people as possible to know her son in his short life. As her family grieves, Christine is released from caring for Tom, but the new sense of freedom is overtaken by a longing to have her son back again. Her diary is a personal, powerful and deeply moving record of a family struggling to come to terms with a child's life and death.

When two writers were told that their sitcom Grope was a touch too bawdy for broadcasting, they decided to turn it into a play and produce it themselves - a tough task when you're on the dole. This personal video diary records the laughs and frustrations which follow Jane Eller and Michele Howarth 's attempts to make their dream come true.

Photo-journalist Chris Steel-Perkins 's video record of the effect of media attention on Somalia's famine.

Jane married Steve at the age of 19. Three years later she found herself in New York with two young daughters and a husband addicted to crack cocaine. She escaped back to England to rebuild her life and now returns to New York to seek a divorce. In the process, she reveals the realities of life on the streets of a city devastated by drugs.

Four evenings a week Robbie Brookside, a top professional wrestler, plays the town halls of Britain. But while the characters of the American scene are TV superstars, Brookside earns little.

At the age of 20 Bob was fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He is now 77, and wants a memorial established in recognition of the dead. He travels to Spain to lobby the Spanish authorities, and visits a concentration camp in which he was imprisoned.

Thom Campbell was convicted in 1984 for six murders during the so-called "ice-cream wars' in Glasgow. Consistently protesting his innocence, he campaigned for a re-trial, going on hunger strike five times. After beatings by prison officers while he was in solitary confinement, he successfully took the authorities to the European Court. Finally, he was moved to Barlinnie Prison Special Unit. He and wife Liz have made this diary offering insights into life in the unit and their struggle for family unity.

The first of eight programmes offers an unprecedented insight into the lives of the mentally ill, as told by a woman who has been diagnosed schizophrenic.

Nineteen-year-old Rob Hunt loves the sea. At least he loves surfingand swimming and soaking up the rays. What he doesn't like, as becomes clear in this film he made himself, is deep-sea fishing. And that is what he does for a living to pay off a debt of National Insurance contributions. Rob shot his film over two years and it captures the monotony of the fishing trips, the frustrations of enforced fishingquotas and the fight to beat Spanish and French boats to a decreasing fish stock.

Tony Thomas-Hall is an athlete trainingforthe World Games in Berlin in a bid to become the fastest above-the-knee amputee. Formerly an able-bodied athlete, Tony developed cancer at 24. Now secondary cancers have appeared in his lung, but he remains determined to compete.

Photographer Paul Harvey offers an insight into the supposedly glamorous world of photographers' models and exotic locations, as Fidel Castro's communist enclave plays host to the preparation of a topless calendar.

Council ratcatcher Paul Taylor knows about fascism. He says: " I was a Nazi when I was an active member of the National Front". Now he is an activist with the Anti-Nazi League. He is deeply concerned that fascism did not die with Adolf Hitlerand that a new generation of Nazis is on the rise throughout Europe. Paul is divorced and divides his time between his twin children, work and confronting the fascists. His diary includes the story of his part in the campaign to stop the BNP adding to their one council seat in East London in the 1994 local government elections.

After twenty-five years of being a hard-working cabbie and single parent, Maria Perriera is determined to spend the rest of her days in Antigua. Family tensions explode as she prepares to leave, and when she arrives at her tranquil destination, more domestic drama erupts to tax her. A frank and no-holds-barred look at a close but stormy and difficult family relationship.

Benedict Allen is an adventurer and real-life Indiana Jones. But the snakes, alligators and big cats in his jungle are not part of a Hollywood set. They are very real. When offered the challenge of an expedition to an unexplored part of the Peruvian rainforest to find the giant snake of the Amazon, Allen cannot resist. The snake lives in the legendary Wild Lake which terrifies the local Jaguar people. Dodging drug traffickers, prospective child brides, hostile tribes and wild animals, he is left alone to confront the terrifying guardian of the lake, armed only with his camcorder and a machete.

Captain Richard Bramford's first posting as a UN military observer is to the heart of Serbian Bosnia. His diary offers a glimpse behind the scenes in this the last programme in the series.

Omerjit Brar, a 19-year-old aspiring model, longs for excitement in her life. In spite of being discouraged by a top agency, she enters the Miss Asia UK competition to help her career. Romantically, however, her life has turned upside down: the suitable boy her parents have arranged for her to marry has a rival for her affections - a new boy called Ranjit.

As part of Chester police's new pro-active squad, Detective Constable Tim Roberts fights on the frontline in the escalating war against drugs. After setting up surveillance operations against dealers suspected of operating from a nightclub, he has to watch and wait with his own promotion prospects hanging on an informer's tip.

Steve and Su Pearce have tried almost everything to have a family of their own. When they decide to adopt a baby from China, they embark on a process that is fraught with difficulties and tensions. Finally, a letter brings unexpected changes, forcing them to confront impossible dilemmas.

Coinciding with South African president Nelson Mandela's first state visit to Britain, this film charts the first year of democracy for three people from Kwazulu-Natal who, having completed a psychological counselling course in London, were determined to help heal the wounds suffered under apartheid. Thuli Myeni's main work is Aids education and counselling; half the people tested at the local hospital for HIV get a positive result. Meshack Madonsela, an inspector for black schools, wants to use his new skills to help teachers under pressure. And Bheki Ntombela returns to his job as a psychiatric nurse - under the same management that were in place before the election.

The first in this four-part documentary series travels to India to tell the story of Kailash Satyarthi, whose organisation attempts to rescue children from the country's child slave trade.

Lifeboat coxswain Eric Ward comes from St Ives, Cornwall, a town known both for its fishing industry and its vibrant artistic community. Ten years ago, Eric applied brush to canvas and tapped into a hitherto hidden talent for life-painting.

Maurice Grosse , aged 76, is a psychic investigator. In 1977 he led the team that hunted the Enfield poltergeist, a widely publicised event which he says inspired the hit Hollywood movies Ghostbusters and Poltergeist. Investigating claims by people who believe they have witnessed manifestations of the supernatural, Maurice Grosse 's video diary includes footage of an all-night vigil at Charlton House, a building in London believed to be haunted.

Zeus is 23-year-old Justin Richards's alter-ego, a body-beautiful male stripper who parades in front of adoring men and women at gay clubs and hen parties. This uninhibited account looks at the lengths to which Richards will go in the quest for fame and fortune, as well as financial and romantic complications he is facing in his hectic personal life.

The documentary series of personal video histories begins a four-part run with an insight into the life and thoughts of Joseph Erber, a child with a mild form of autism. Last year, he became the youngest composer ever to have his work performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

An account of the first months at Westminster of Anne Begg , Britain's first wheelchair- using MP, who entered Parliament at the last election after 19 years as a teacher in Scotland. Her hectic schedule includes her maiden speech, an invitation to 10 Downing Street and the problems of finding somewhere to live in London. Although expecting some press interest on account of a hereditary condition that results in brittle bones, she isn'tfully prepared forthe overwhelming degree of press preoccupation.

An insight into the high-pressure life of Steve Malone, head of a night-time mental-health team based in Paddington, London. The team he leads are summoned to attend to people who require more help than the traditional emergency services can provide.

Paul Nurse , leading scientist and director-general of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, has devoted his career to helping find a cure for the highly complex disease. The fund needs a weekly injection of £1 million in order to operate and, with only one per cent of this sum coming from the Government, Nurse is also at the forefront of fund-raising. This film follows him as he tries to balance the demands on his time.

A candid record of the Royal National Theatre's tour of the Far East with their production of Othello. Filmed by David Harewood, who was the first black actor to play the lead role at the National.

For explorer David Hempleman-Adams, reaching the North Pole has always been his most elusive goal. This year, with his Norwegian companion Rune Gjeldnes, he used a camcorder to record every stage of their tortuous walk.

Businessman Jivi, who has lived all his life in Birmingham, decides to pay a visit to his grandmothers in India, then sets off to see the rest of the country.

Hank Wangford and his band travel to meet real cowboys in the Falklands during Camp Sports - the week in which the islanders let their hair down after a year's work on farms. As well as uncovering a passion for country music, Wangford encounters the local wildlife, including penguins, dolphins and albatrosses, and displays his aptitude for shearing sheep.

When Tim and Debbie Stevenson made a decision that Debbie should become a surrogate mother for her cousin, they had little idea of how it will impact on their lives. After first attempts at an implant failed to reap rewards, regular hormone treatment - and the accompanying emotional strain and physical discomfort - became part of their daily life. However, the problems really began when the long-awaited baby was finally due to be born.

Anna is prepared to go to any lengths necessary to make sure her sons are afforded a decent education. But no school within an hour's drive from her house in west London is prepared to admit them because they are autistic. Frustrated at officialdom's lack of positive response, she applies to renovate a derelict school and run it herself as one of Europe's largest specialist establishments. This film follows Anna as she tries to balance the demands of being a full-time carer for her sons with raising funds, running a charity and wading through bureaucracy.

Following an accident, Frances Rodgers 's life fell apart in the space of six months: she lost her job, her flat and her boyfriend. Now, five months pregnant, she tries to survive on just £37 a week in a council flat in Chesterfield. Determined to give her unborn child the happy family she never had, she has decided on adoption. Cameras follow her in the final months of pregnancy until the day comes when she must walk away from her baby.

Actions most people take for granted, such as making phone calls and buying travel tickets, are daily struggles for Anuraag Parashar, who has a stammer. Recently graduated and looking for work, Parashar decides it's time to take action. Armed with a camcorder to record his progress, he embarks on a speech therapy course in London.

Welsh hill farmer William Jenkins records his ongoing struggle to make a living.

The second of two countryside specials follows 26-year-old Emma Lavelle, the youngest racehorse trainer in Britain, as she tries to make a success of her Hampshire stables.