A comedian once said he had cured his friend's manic depression by stopping him watch World in Action. For there on a Monday night sandwiched between a soap opera and a jolly sitcom was our conscience, a reminder that things were not quite right in the world and somebody might be suffering. Most TV shows have a routine compilation edition at the end of the year and one of World in Action's was modestly sub titled 'Sorry,nothing doing' as if to say their years output had made no difference,but this was not so, a World in Action film lingered in the mind and did affect change. Its film on lorry drivers probably pushed through the Tachograph?,its films on mental health definitely helped sweep away the old style mental institutions and the reason furniture today has a 'flame proof' label was probably due to its eye opening film of an armchair catching fire. In today's mass media,issues blow up and shine bright for a couple of weeks and then are forgotten, but in the days when TV was 'the' window on the world a World in Action issue was a slow burner that you would not forget and did eventually make difference.
