Video Diaries

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.