Lockerbie - The Unheard Voices, Channel 5, Tuesday at 9pm
Muammar Gaddafi escalated Ireland’s troubles by shipping huge quantities of explosives and ammunition to the IRA, but he was also directly responsible for one of Britain’s worst ever terrorist attacks.
Ironically, Lockerbie, where a Pan Am flight was blown up by a Libyan bomb, was not much more than 100 miles from Northern Ireland.
Gaddafi’s bombs and guns probably killed more in Ireland, but it was the scale of the deaths of Lockerbie in a single moment which stands out.
When a cassette recorder in a piece of luggage exploded, the Pan Am flight - from Germany to the US, via London - was travelling at 500 mph, 30,000 feet above the Scottish borders.
The consequences were devastating, with 259 passengers and crew losing their lives, along with 11 residents of Lockerbie.
Parts of the plane and bodies were spread out over miles around the town with the remains of 43 people recovered on Lockerbie Golf Course and 87 victims discovered at Park Place where a piece of the plane smashed into a row of houses.
It took six weeks to recover everyone possible, with 11 people outstanding.
Almost thirty years on, Unheard Lockerbie Voices wasn’t interested in the perpetrators, but concentrated on the stories of six victims and their relatives, including Nicola Boulanger whose was seated near the wing where the bomb exploded.
Her remains were never recovered, but her mother told how she had asked for some “dirt” from the Sherwood Crescent crater - where the fuselage landed - to remember her daughter.
“When my time comes that dirt will be buried with me,” she said.
One of the interesting aspects of this excellent documentary were the stories of the passengers who missed the flight and cheated death.
Kim Wickham, who was due to return home to the US with other students, decided to stay in Germany for Christmas, and continues to have guilt she knows is illogical.
Also Jaswant Bastua, who missed the flight while in a Heathrow bar, initially became the chief suspect because his luggage was in the hold without him on the plane.
The true culprit was a crazed dictator who wanted to punish the Americans and the British for halting his ambitions to be emperor of Africa.
***
Sports Personality - A Great Sporting Year, BBC 1, Tuesday at 11.10pm
Jessica Ennis-Hill competently took us through the sporting year in this one hour special.
Presenting on her own, with recorded interviews, the Olympic gold medal winner summarised the year's events in football, rugby, cricket, golf, speed skating, gymnastics, darts, American football, snooker, cycling, tennis, motorsport and this year’s Commonwealth Games.
She interviewed England manager Gareth Southgate about the World Cup heroics, Elise Christie about her disasters in the speed skating and the English netball team about their Commonwealth gold medal.
However, what's the point of the programme when we will have the whole two-hour razzmatazz of Sunday December 16 when the BBC gives us the full-fat Sports Personality of the Year in front of a live Birmingham audience and with three presenters.
The sports personality title has never been taken that seriously anyway, but has fallen into farce in recent years.
So nervous are the BBC at complaints of lack of equality and rigged voting, that the contenders are only going to be revealed on the night.
Is it possible that the straightforward Ennis-Hill programme was meant to be sold on to commercial broadcasters overseas?
There was certainly a sense that her show was designed for advertisement breaks, with sections where it would seem natural to cut away to the ads.
It's the only reason I can think of.
