BBC ALBA finds India’s star athlete of the future and follows the community of men and iron

In what looked like a weekly programme frontloaded with music – good music but the schedule was starting to look a bit repetitive – BBC ALBA has again come up with some nuggets of television.

Soillse, or Little Heroes of Asia – which airs on 6th February from 21.00 to 21.50 – introduces us to Boodjia.

He’s 4 years old and has already run marathon races of up to 60km in about 6 ½ hours,

One of India’s child prodigies in the athletic world, Boodjia’s  fame also raises issues of child exploitation and the mismanagement – or misdirection – of childhood. This is no simple fairytale.

Then, the next evening, between 21.00 and 21.45 on 7th February, comes Diary of Britain: Men and Iron.

Back in 1978 A Diary of Britain filmed a week in the life of fifteen communities throughout the UK during that year.

Men and Iron focused on the workers of the Lion Foundry in Kirkintilloch, on the outskirts of Glasgow, providing us with a vivid portrayal of their working lives and the community spirit in the area between the 11th and the 15th of December 1978.

As with the regularly delivered best of BBC ALBA’s programming, these two programmes each mine material that is gripping to watch and  feeds thought.