It would be particularly effective if it were used in conjunction with programme grading.In America, the chip has been championed by the flamboyant senator Ed Markey, who considers the whole concept of V-chips “unassailable”. Earlier this month we had already had an indication of the way the Government is thinking on censorship when Chris Smith made it clear that he and his colleagues were not opposed to the V-chip in principle and announced that he would be evaluating its use in the United States, where all new television sets are legally required to carry one.
The so-called V-chip is a device which allows parents to block their children from seeing certain programmes, and its introduction in this country has been mooted for some time. It will be preceded by a candle-lit procession from St John’s Church, Waterloo.. ANOTHER blow to our individual freedoms or just a helping hand from our friendly Government? Certainly it was hardly a surprise when it emerged at the weekend that TV programmes are likely to be given ratings, which will grade transmissions according to the amount of sex, violence and bad language they contain.

“To start a thing is one thing, but tribute should be paid to those who built it up step by step.” But he never expected it to be still going. “If you had asked us what we thought would happen in 30 years’ time, we would have said that the problem would be solved,” he says. What does it say about our society that it is not?”Tickets for Under the Heavens at the Globe Theatre on Sunday, 29 March, are available, price pounds 5-pounds 25 from Ticketmaster 0171 344 4444. “I didn’t see myself as a social worker.” He praises those who took it forward. She is optimistic that the Government’s social exclusion unit will help tackle the enormous problem of communication between departments.Bill Shearman ended his close involvement with the charity after the 1969 pilgrimage “I was tired of it,” he admits. Hundreds more are homeless outside the capital, where the smaller numbers mean even less support is available to them.At the Globe, as Rory Bremner, Kathy Burke, Jane Horrocks and the singer Beth Orton take to the stage, up to 600 people will flood on to the streets as the winter shelters in London close.”The problem is entirely resolvable given proper resourcing,” Shaks Ghosh says.

Now the failure of the Care in the Community policy and its impact on the mentally ill is the top priority.The average life expectancy of single homeless people is 42. They are 50 times more likely to be fatally assaulted and one in 50 in London suffers from tuberculosis. In the 1980s, single homelessness became a young people’s problem. The last government’s rough sleepers’ initiative helped many find somewhere to live, although teenagers continue to end up on the streets, often as the result of family breakdowns or conflicts over boyfriends and drugs. In 1972, it held its first “open Christmas,” offering shelter, food and support to the street homeless from a church in Lambeth. Now called simply Crisis, the charity works all year round with an annual budget of pounds 5.5m.As it commemorates its 30th year with a star-studded fund-raising event at the Globe Theatre in London, the charity’s chief executive, Shaks Ghosh, says the need for its work is as great as ever, even if the nature of the problem has changed.Thirty years ago, the single homeless were mostly older men – the “gentlemen of the road”. “Most people say that the pilgrimage put Crisis at Christmas on the map,” Mr Shearman says.The appeals became an annual event and the organisation registered as a charity.

“I’d hoped, perhaps a bit ambitiously, to raise pounds 50,000. But everybody else thought it was marvellous.”The following year they conjured up the idea of a pilgrimage in reverse, starting in Canterbury and coming to London.Michael Ramsay, the then Archbishop, and Macleod led the start of the walk which ended in a rally in Westminster Central Methodist Hall. Three thousand people gathered in Hyde Park on 17 December 1967, where they were addressed by Macleod, along with Dr David Owen, then a young Labour MP, and Donald, later Lord Soper, the Methodist minister and still a vice-president of the charity.They raised pounds 7,000, which was distributed to organisations working in the East End “I was profoundly disappointed,” Bill Sherman says. Ian Macleod tried to get us publicity but nobody was interested,” Mr Shearman says.