Howard Connell

Captain Horatio Hornblower leads his ship HMS Lydia on a perilous transatlantic voyage, during which his faithful crew battle both a Spanish warship and a ragged band of Central American rebels.

After losing their father in the Boer War, orphaned brothers Harry and Davy must leave their home in Scotland to live with their grandmother and cantankerous grandfather in Nova Scotia. The boys want nothing more than a pet dog, but their grandfather refuses to get them one. Then, when the brothers find an abandoned baby, they decide to keep it – but the foundling may not have been abandoned after all.

In rural Norfolk, villagers are spurred to action when it is announced that the nearby RAF station is taking over the Island of Children, a much-loved and untouched bird sanctuary, for rocket practice.

At Balloch Moss mine in Scotland, water comes through a seam bringing a torrent of mud into the mine and flooding the pit shaft, resulting in 118 men being trapped, with nine missing. The only means by which the rescue team can bring the men out is through some old abandoned workings which are now full of gas and thus will cause delays in any rescue attempt.

Story of four youngsters who discover birds' nest thieves on a sanctuary island.From story by Mary Cathcart Borer.

A successful artist recalls his life in the tenements of the Glasgow slums. In flashback his recalls the events and characters he shared with in a slum tenement building.