Gale is Dead

Gale Parsons was loving, intelligent and - according to everyone who knew her - had much to offer; everything to live for. But, aged just 19 and a drug addict, she was found dead in the basement of a derelict house in Chelsea. Harold Williamson and the Man Alive team first met Gale when making a programme about people who had been brought up in children's homes. What was apparent, even then, was her total loss of hope, her disbelief in any future. Now, the people who were in her life and who cared for her in and out of various institutions ask: need she have died? One of the first documentaries to draw attention to young homeless and drug addicted people, Gale is Dead was nominated for a BAFTA in 1971. Its director, Jenny Barraclough, received an OBE in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Documentary Film Making and Charity. (1970)