🎬August 1975 marked the 40th anniversary of the opening of the M27 motorway. Paul Clifton looks back at the sometimes dramatic life of the road.

The first section of the motorway near Southampton opened in August 1975. The original idea was for a south coast motorway stretching from Kent to Cornwall. For financial reasons, this would never happen.

BBC South Today Production
19th August 2015

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode1 BBC South. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 1 BBC South. Steve Humphrey tells the story of BBC South from the first broadcasts of South at Six. Introductory footage is from the British Pathé Archive.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode2 John Arlott's Avington. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 2 John Arlott's Avington. The earliest surviving recording of BBC South is from 1962 and includes a feature by the illustrious sports broadcaster John Arlott, who produced a series of reports called ABC of the South, visiting places around the region in alphabetical order. One of the first came from the village of Avington, nestling in the Itchen Valley just east of Winchester. Roger Johnson has been re-tracing his steps.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode 3 Environment. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 3 Environment. For many years Roger Finn was BBC South's Environment Correspondent. We asked him to suggest his personal top three environmental success stories from BBC South's fifty years of broadcasting.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode 4 Aldaniti. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 4 Aldaniti. Nobody expected Aldaniti to win the 1981 Grand National. The horse had suffered leg injuries and jockey Bob Champion was recovering from cancer. But win they did and their story inspired a feature film, Champions. Thirty years later Roger Johnson accompanied Bob Champion on a nostalgic visit to trainer Josh Gifford's stables in Findon.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.

🎬BBC South 50 years: Episode 5 Royal Celebrations. A series of 19 mini-features made by BBC South at Southampton in 2011 to celebrate the station's 50 year history.

Episode 5 Royal Celebrations. One of a series of features which celebrate BBC South's 50 years of broadcasting. In 1977 BBC South filmed the Silver Jubilee celebrations in a Dorset village. Thirty four years later Steve Humphrey showed the film to children in the local school, who were amused to see what their parents had got up to.

NFG are indebted to the BBC staff at Southampton for their help in sourcing items for the archive. See more episodes in the Category - BBC South.