Alan Dein travels to Nottingham to meet with the 4th & 5th generations of a family firm of Funeral Directors (with a 6th generation already on the horizon). When furniture maker and dealer Arthur William Lymn started 'undertaking' funerals with his son Harold Percy in 1907, their first premises were on Goosegate - next door to a man selling potions and lotions. Although Arthur and Harold could not match the subsequent success of their next-door-neighbours, the Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd,...

The Boleyn Ground, Upton Park. Home to West Ham since 1904. No one would call the stadium, or indeed the streets that closely bind it in the borough of Newham, beautiful but it has echoed to one of football's oldest anthems 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' since the 1920's. Now that song and the stones & grass that have been an arena for legends like Hurst, Moore & Peters will not just fade and die but be demolished. Very soon the club will move from E13 to E20 & the Queen Elizabeth...

When pensioners Viv and Fred Morgan read about a teenager committing suicide clutching her teddy, they decided to act - turning their home into a school to help other bullied kids. They took their Bed and Breakfast in Hatton, Warwickshire and turned rooms into classrooms and built recreation and therapy facilities in the grounds. Now they have 17 pupils attending, more than half of whom have tried to take their own lives in the past. Children aged between 11 and 16 can be referred by their...

Lives in a Landscape reports from Penistone, where Claire Throssell is being helped by her community after her sons were killed by their father in a house fire exactly a year ago. As well as killing his sons and himself, Darren Sykes also destroyed much of the house, lighting fires throughout the terraced home and luring his boys into the loft with the promise of a new train set. He had cancelled the home insurance before the blaze and Claire faced both the devastating loss of her sons and...

For every stand-up comedian that's a household name, there are dozens of hard-working, funny, committed comedians who haven't quite broken through into the national consciousness. Christian Reilly is a musical stand-up, a wandering minstrel, whose comedy material is delivered through song. He's a popular and successful act who's in great demand on the comedy-club circuit. His diary is packed: Some weeks he'll do two gigs in one night, in two different cities. It's an exhausting schedule....

Alan Dein joins African and Afro Caribbean Catholics from Bristol as they take part in the annual pilgrimage to the ancient abbey at Glastonbury. On board the pilgrim bus, parishioners share their life stories, and explain why they are all drawn to worship in the church of St Nicholas of Tolentino. Producer: Chris Ledgard

Alan Dein tackles the picturesque but crowded stretch of the River Cam that winds in and out of Cambridge. Here, house-boats, punts, rowing boats and cruisers fight for space on what is, the river manager says, the most crowded stretch of river in Britain. Producer: Chris Ledgard.

In the last few years, 'adoption activity days' have gathered momentum in the UK, where children waiting to be adopted meet prospective adoptive parents at a party. The children are often 'hard to place,' either because of medical issues, their age, or behavioural problems. The hope is that once the families meet them face to face, they will get a much better idea of the children, rather than from paper and photo alone. For these children, the party day is often their last chance to find a...

Alan Dein meets farmer Steve Graham as he sells his herd of 1000 dairy cows - the largest UK sale this year. Having woken at dawn for 35 years to milk the cows, he has decided to sell - but how will he adjust to life without them? Steve's life has been governed by the relentless pattern of milking twice a day, and the pressures of rearing the cows from birth and caring for them throughout their lives. On his farm in Devon, he says "There are a lot easier ways of making money than milking...

Ms Pope runs a tight ship in her class of 27 at Bowling Park Primary School: she has little option given her pupils come from 18 different countries, speak 31 languages between them and have to all pitch in on the frequent occasions when classmates leave and new ones arrive Maja tells me that teaching her Mum English is one of the hardest things she has ever attempted: she's given up now! She learnt from class-mate Casper, who has taught others in the class. Maja is now teaching L'Annee, who...

Alan Dein meets the modern residents of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. While the recorded history of of the place can be traced back to the 6th century and includes the followers of St. Aiden and St Cuthbert, the current residents try to maintain a way of life that has existed for hundreds of years. Where the monks of Lindisfarne had contend with the Vikings and the Reformation, today's residents face an annual invasion of half a million tourists. With the help of residents - both young and...

In the start of the new series of Lives in a Landscape Alan Dein discovers that instead of prescribing tablets local GPs are writing out prescriptions for a few weeks of Titan therapy: watching rugby games, attending weekly lunches and fitness classes. The pensioners are sitting alongside the players as they train and even as they strip down for next year's fund-raising calendar. Titan therapy, at Rotherham Titans rugby club, has been so successful that many of those initially given funding...

In 1602 Sir Richard Carew saw fishermen catching oysters with 'a thick strong net fastened to three spills of iron, and drawn to the boat's stern, gathering whatsoever it meeteth lying in the bottom of the water, out of which... they cull the oyster'. When Les Angel and Timmy Heard show Alan Dein how they catch oysters in the Fal today he finds that, in four centuries, nothing's changed. The last wild native oyster beds lie in this beautiful Cornish estuary. In 1876, in an early example of...

Jam, Jerusalem and an Awful Lot of Glitter When Jeannie joined her local branch of the Women's Institute in Liverpool, she hoped for a bit of distraction from an ongoing, long term illness. But what she found there was a whole lot more than jam and Jerusalem. Before you could say Victoria sponge cake, she was sashaying down a catwalk dressed as a space alien, complete with ray gun, 8 inch heels and 3 inch red eyelashes, in front of a screaming audience. Welcome to the Vogue Ball -...

Alan Dein visits an old mariners' home on the banks of the River Mersey. Mariners' Park in Wallasey is home to over 150 former Merchant Navy seamen and their wives or widows. Many of them set off on their maiden voyage as young sailors from Liverpool, passing the home on their port side as they embarked on a life of discovery, adventure and hard work at sea. Now, having "swallowed the anchor", they settled here in retirement and watch the occasional vessel pass up and down the river. But, as...

Bradford Council regularly monitors horse numbers on its Holme Wood estate, with workers and police carrying out late night raids to round them up. Alan Dein meets the animal owners and explores their bitter battle with the council as they tether horses in parks, alleys and even their own gardens. Gaz has tried dogs, cats and guinea pigs. Last week when his seven kids wanted a new pet he picked up a £50 horse form a mate on the street. The horse is now in his back garden and during the day...

Gerry Marshall was one of the most famous racing drivers of his generation; a larger-than-life character with big appetites, who eventually died of heart failure behind the wheel at Silverstone in 2005. His son, Gregor, always wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, but Gerry discouraged him, saying "what's the point, you'll never be as good as me". But Gregor hasn't given up on his dream of racing. He has bought a vintage car, similar to the one his father raced, and is restoring it,...

In February 2014, the worst storms in a generation hit the south Devon coast. Among those affected were the owners of five beach chalets at Branscombe. The sea took away much of the beach and eroded the earth banks on which the chalets stood, exposing the foundations and making some of them uninhabitable. Before the storm, the chalets were worth up to £250,000 each but now they are virtually unsaleable. The owners would like to rebuild them, and move shingle back up the beach to protect...

Alan Dein meets doulas in Lewes in Sussex - people working in palliative care from all walks of life who have learned how to be companions for people who are dying. They also are involved in consciousness-raising about the end of life and run Death Cafes in Lewes. We follow doulas Polly and Jane as they reveal their motivation for being involved in this work, talk to people about end of life directives, and describe what a doula does in the room of a dying person. Producer: Sara Conkey.

Alan Dein follows the fast-moving story of a squatter who takes over a pub in Luton - he says for the benefit of the local community. The Roman Way is a sprawling 1960s pub at the centre of the Lewsey Farm housing estate. The landlord of fourteen years, Declan, made the decision earlier this year to give up the business and return to Ireland to start a new life. But, just as Declan is leaving, on his very last morning in the pub, Biggs turns up; a larger-than-life local character...

74 year old Myf Barker is turning her enormous home into a wedding venue in the hope that it will make money. Kate Lamble meets the family and uncovers memories amid the chaos. Purton House has been lived in by Myf, her late husband and her children for decades. It's a rambling family mansion with grounds, and an organic farm attached. But Myf has an eye to the future and wants to leave the house to her children as a viable business. So she's working to turn the property into a venue where...

Wrestling, which used to draw millions of viewers to the box on Saturday afternoons in the 1970's, is still going strong in theatres up and down the country. Characters like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks have given way to The Avalanche, Tony Spitfire and Thunder who throw each other about and continue to delight and appal passionate audiences. Alan Dein follows Gareth Pugh, a young wrestler touring the UK circuit. Known by the Welsh name Caden Lay (Spirit of Battle), Gareth is breaking into...

Jade has a dream - to run the best beauty parlour in the business. Just off Oxford Street, shopping mecca of London's West End, Jade's salon paints nails to perfection, massages faces, and does intimate waxing with aplomb. Intimacy with the clients is also what Jade is good at - knowing her customers, helping them make the most of their bodies, and their day. "Women come in to have their nails done," she tells Sangita Myska, "And they tell me I have saved their lives!" A teenage rebel, she...

Alan Dein follows Pat & Hayley Mallon - a husband and wife singing duo - around the pubs of Bath. The show must go on - even as 69 year old Pat prepares for major surgery on an aneurysm. Bath's pub circuit is a far cry from the packed houses that Pat was playing with his 5 piece Country & Western band back in the 1980s. His has been a life well-lived. During those heady days, he was on two bottles of whiskey and 100 cigarettes a day. But now Pat's facing the prospect of major...