How the BBC Began

Presenter James Burke tells how the Queen Mother helped to shape the BBC's coverage of one Apollo space mission. BBC executive Sir Huw Wheldon describes the tension of producing Sir Winston Churchill's one appearance on television. And June Spencer, famous for her role as Peggy in `The Archers', shows the letter she received from a listener who was worried that she didn't know about her unmarried daughter's pregnancy.

BBC Television's first female newsreader, Nan Winton, tells the story of how she was sacked because the editor preferred men to read the news. That editor, Michael Peacock, describes his shame at the whole episode. Staff working in the BBC's monitoring service near Reading explain the critical role they played in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

The story of the BBC's development of impartiality, starting with the General Strike of 1926. Plus, how the BBC infuriated Downing Street by allowing the opposition equal time on the airwaves during the Suez Crisis in 1956.