East Kilbride Town Centre - The Plaza, 1981. BBC Scotland's "The Mad Death"

This time in a higher res and with the correct aspect ratio! Filmed in 1981 but not transmitted until July 1983, this section is from episode two of the three-part BBC Scotland drama series which fictionalised a rabies outbreak in Scotland, thanks to a quarantine-dodging posh French bird taking her cat into the country, which had been previously bitten by a rabid fox. (the cat, not the posh French bird.) Le meow! This is the only section of the entire miniseries to feature East Kilbride, and shows some sections of the Centre that are still (barely) recognisable, and others that are now gone completely, thanks to the renovation work started in 1987 and completed in 1989. The series - surprisingly - has stood up well to time. The cars are chunkier and the phones are infinitely less mobile, but the drama has lost little punch in almost thirty years since it was filmed, and the special effects are still shocking, if you ignore the (thankfully sparse) use of dodgy fox puppets. The series was repeated once in 1985 and has never been issued on DVD, but it was edited to film length and released on a now impossible-to-find VHS in the mid-80s. (although... and I didn't tell you this... if you look around, there's an American website selling a DVD dump of the edited VHS on-line for less than twenty bucks. Shhh....) This particular recording is from the 1993/4 UK Gold screening, hence the ropey quality and the ghastly gold dog in the corner. ....no pun intended.