White out

AT first glance, Last Orders appears to be a documentary about a struggling working men's club in Yorkshire. Wibsey WMC in Bradford is losing members and money, and the signs are that it could soon join the one in four clubs going out of business each week.

As this launches the BBC's White season - a series of programmes about the British white working class today -- you can guess that finance isn't the only worry.

The smoking ban is pointed to as one of the fresh problems, but it becomes clear that the Wibsey community, which is 91 per cent white, has wider concerns involving multiculturalism.

American documentary-maker Henry Singer goes on a lot about a "sense of community".

But that was part of the old days when you had to be in the club by 6.30 to be sure of getting a seat. Now they can't give them away, with both the Sunday night entertainment and bingo running at a loss.

A club that once had over 1,000 members now has just 400. If the committee can't find ways to reverse the trend, Wibsey WMC will have to close. The future isn't looking good as you can tell by the way new committee member John is fighting a losing battle to get the diehards to change their ways.

IT'S a reflection of the situation outside, suggests Singer, as Bradford, where a quarter of the population is made up of ethnic minorities, tries to adjust to a multiracial society. Many at the club have fallen out of love with the Labour Party. "The Government doesn't care about the working man," they say.

The committee debates endlessly about how to put the club back on its feet, but gets bogged down in squabbles about leaving lights on, introducing ballroom dancing (no one's interested) and sacking bar staff.

Singer's film offers locals the chance to air their views. They do so in a reasonable, unconfrontational way although that won't stop you regretting their often blinkered outlook.

Singer himself is seduced by the people and the place, owning up to spending more time in the club without his camera. He's grateful that Wibsey WMC welcomes him with open arms. I wonder if they'd do the same to everyone who tried to join the club.

Unreported World offers a new type of displaced person - the climate refugee. Reporter Ramita Navai is in one of the world's poorest countries, Bangladesh, in the areas worst hit by last November's cyclone.

The damage, in "a country disappearing under water", is indicative of the effect climate change is having on people and places.

The UN has warned that in less than 50 years time, rising sea levels could leave 30 million Bangladeshi homeless.

The cyclone left 3,000 dead and millions homeless. This disaster comes as ever-rising water levels threaten to take their land, their livelihood and even their lives.

Seven million were made homeless by the last monsoon flooding. Severe flooding is occurring every five years now, compared to every 20 in the past. People whose villages now lie under water have retreated to shacks on the roadside. They spend their lives wading through mud and being wet.

There's water where roads once were. Children in one village can only get to school by boat now, with only one classroom being used as the others are submerged. They run the risk of getting infections from the water.

Melting Himalayan glaciers are putting more water into rivers, which aren't being dredged and getting clogged up, causing more flooding.

Even the temporary islands built of mud and silt that are home to 2.5 million people are being eroded by the rising rivers. These climate refugees are being driven into the capital which, with three million residents, can ill afford to house any more.

Navai's report doesn't make comfortable viewing and, watching a preview tape of the programme after Last Orders, I couldn't help wondering what the good folk of Wibsey would have made of the threat to this nonwhite working class community.