Early seventies bad lads documentaries

[Danny]

There was a three or four part documentary series about a group of trainees in an open Borstal - somewhere in South West - that was shown in early seventies.

I think some of it may have inspired Scum in later years cos one lad attacked another at the sinks.

One scene that sticks in my head is one trainee relating to camera his past crimes , a minor one was he wanted to put some flares into his jeans ( at the time it was hard to get hold of flares cos they'd just came out instead of bell-bottoms) so he decided to DIY a pair.
He stole a girls red leather coat at his school, into toilets, cut out two long triangles from the back and then returned it to peg so the holes weren't on show. Next day he strolled proudly into school in his new flares with red leather sides and the police were there taking statements about this expensive red leather coat with missing sections - arrested!

It later showed another trainee who'd succeeded in getting totally drunk and was on a rampage, the staff got all into the cells and just let him go berserk wrecking the buildings until police came, then commentator stated he was now in a secure unit.

I 've looked online but can't track this series down so help please

[Richard1978]

Re: Early seventies bad lads documentaries

I might have seen a clip or 2 from this, one with a very young lad smoking like a chimney, & another warned about loosing his temper because the last time he got angry it took half the staff to pin him down.

[Danny]

Re: Early seventies bad lads documentaries

Yes thats another memory of it - the remark about it taking half the staff.

I have a strong feeling the entire series was repeated a few years later.

The building being near a beach rings a bell - was it the place where they ued to march the trainees out onto the sand to gather all pebbles up into neat little squares and then spread them out again between tides? I think this was more to get them used to a regular work regime but not intended as a punishment

[Richard1978]

Re: Early seventies bad lads documentaries

I've got a feeling I saw the clips in a documentary in the 1990s about residential care, rather than a full repeat.