Bigger would mean better for trio desperate to grow

ON the face of it, this looked like another of those slightly sensational documentaries along the lines of Plastic Surgery Ruined My Penis Extension or 100 Great Surgical Procedures That Went Wrong. That it turned out to be an engrossing and at times moving story of three people of less than average height is a tribute to both film-makers and their subjects.

By short, I'm not talking the size of Snow White's friends. But the three subjects have been rejected, ridiculed and beaten up because of their lack of height.

Michael, 28, is five foot four and three-quarters. He feels that people are prejudiced against him, and those like him. They suffer in the same way that others are persecuted because of their race, colour and nationality.

The facts say that short men are less attractive to women, get paid less, and are less likely to win elections. But Michael's visit to a meeting of the British Tall Persons Club didn't provide any answers. He went looking for allies and found some of these lofty folk were as prejudiced as everyone else.

Mother-of-two Wendy is four foot ten-and-a-half inches tall. She desperately wants to be taller, although husband Paul wasn't happy with what she wanted to put herself through. Wendy had discovered on the Internet all about leg-lengthening operations. This surgery involves breaking the legs, then stretching them slowly over a period of 12 months. The very painful, lengthy surgery would give her an extra three to four inches in height. If she couldn't persuade a doctor in this country to perform the operation on the NHS, she faced going abroad and a bill of as much as £27,000.

Much more worrying than that large sum was the fact that Wendy and Paul clearly hadn't come to any agreement about the necessity of the operation. He couldn't see the need for her to be taller but was willing to support her. The strain was clearly beginning to tell on Wendy.

Then there was 13-year-old Ricky who, at four foot six inches, was lagging behind his friends. He was a good seven inches shorter than them. As a result, he was getting badly bullied at school - events that he relayed to us with amazing honesty in his video diary. After seeing the programme, teachers will hopefully do something about it.

For Ricky, unlike Michael and Wendy, there was a happy ending. Tests showed he was perfectly normal, just late starting puberty - nothing that a few shots of testosterone wouldn't kick start.