GROWING UP IN SCOTLAND: A CENTURY OF CHILDHOOD, BBC2, 9pm
THE title is a bit misleading: the show goes back to John Knox, and it isn’t about “childhood” but the Scottish education system. A worthy subject, but I’d been hoping for a nostalgic look back at toys and games and jeely pieces flung from “the 19th flair”. Perhaps later shows will remedy this.
This documentary says that how we are raised shapes the nation, and shows us how the Scottish education system developed.
Tom Devine takes us back to the Reformation and then on to the Scottish Enlightenment, showing how these great movements meant local schools were created and became a “badge of pride for Scots of every class”.
We move forward on to the division of children by religion, and the use of the belt. It’s a serious programme but some levity is introduced when a 1970s child protests that being belted for leaving the classroom isn’t fair: “Naw, cos ye might be burstin’.”
THIS WORLD: BORN TOO WHITE, BBC2, 11.15pm
TANZANIA has 16,000 albino people, half of whom are children. It also has some awful superstitions and cruel attitudes about those born with albinism.
This documentary sends Oscar Duke, a doctor with albinism, to Tanzania to discover what it’s like to live in a country where you might be subject to taunts and abuse, or even killed, because of your condition. As Duke reminds us, being an albino doesn’t just mean you have pale hair and skin; it also affects the eyes and causes sight problems. The NHS can help with eye tests and glasses, but albinos in Tanzania aren’t so lucky, and they also need to cope with superstitions which exclude them from society, or might even see them hunted and killed. Some believe an albino’s body contains minerals which can be extracted to make the hunter rich, and Duke meets a man who admits killing an albino for these “minerals”.
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