Meet the Willis family from Stirling. For more than 25 years the Willis family has battled sex and society. Now they are set to become unlikely TV stars

Michael is the Scottish chairman of the ProLife Alli ance. He and his Dutch wife Leonie have been campaigning for the rights of the unborn child for more than 25 years. They have five children, and their three eldest daughters – all virgins and proud to be -- are active helpers in their parents' fight against promiscuity.

This unusual family seek publicity for their cause, but may soon find themselves garnering more attention than they can handle after allowing themselves to be followed by a Channel 4 film crew.

Although broadcaster Darcus Howe found the Willises to be kind and welcoming people, he says he was also a little frightened. 'There is a menace about them. The spirits of the past inhabit the home,' he said.

The Roman Catholic church plays an important role in the Willis household. The family attend mass each Sunday, and their daily life is punctuated by the ritual of prayer.

Because ProLife is a legally registered political party, Leonie and her daughters Astrid and Anne Marie have been able to stand under its banner in national elections. Anne Marie was a candidate for East Kilbride in this year's general election, as was Leonie for Stirling. Astrid stood in the 1999 elections for the Scottish parliament, along with her mother.

The family seem to have limitless energy for campaigning, and are prepared to use shock tactics to get their message across. The ProLife Alliance fielded 37 candidates in this year's general election, and wanted to show an electoral broadcast containing footage of aborted foetuses. This was censored by the BBC.

Under the alliance banner, the Willis parents and their daughters campaign for the repeal of the 1967 Abortion Act. This would mean the outlawing of all abortion except where the baby's death was brought about indirectly, for example as a side-effect of medical treatment of the mother.

They also want to see a ban on cloning, embryo experiments and reproductive technologies where more embryos are created than are used. And they believe that euthanasia, whether voluntary or administered to those in a vegetative state, should be illegal.

All seems peaceful and good within the Willis home. It is only when they begin to speak about their beliefs -- about the corrup ted world outside and the dangers that lie in wait for their children -- that the harmonious vision dissolves to reveal something darker.

'Let's be very, very careful about what we teach our children at school about sex,' says Michael. His wife puts it more strongly. 'We believe it is all the same fight:

 homosexuality, sex education, abortion. We are totally against sex education. We would call it pornography, as strongly as that.'

Leonie often talks of her work in terms of a battle -- particularly when confronted with the suggestion that the innocent childhood ideal she is fighting to protect does not exist. 'We have to bring it back, that is why we have this fight. The Ten Commandments -- we should go back to that and we would end all this chaos in society.'

She seems single-minded in her determination to shelter her girls from the outside world. But Astrid, her eldest daughter, is her equal when it comes to fighting talk. Asked whether she is a strong believer, she replies defiantly: 'I'm 23 now. I don't need anyone to get me up to go to mass. It's my choice.'

On the subject of chastity until marriage she is just as vehement. 'I believe in that, yes. I don't want to have to worry about unwanted pregnancy or how many partners I've had, what diseases they could catch or who they have been with.'

Anne Marie, 21, expresses herself forcefully too, but with a certain defensiveness. When Howe asked whether she was ever tempted by the opposite sex she replied: 'Tempted to be doing what everybody else is doing? No, because I think that's a nightmare. I'd hate to be doing what they're doing. I wouldn't have much respect for myself if that's what I was doing.'

Despite training as a nurse, she sees her future firmly in the home. 'My only ambition really is to get married and have lots of kids. That's what I'd like, and that's what I've always thought, really.' She wants six or eight children, an even bigger brood than the one her mother has.

Howe, who has seven children by four women, some of them out of wedlock, was shocked at the Willis family's vehemence. After accompanying them on a demonstration in Edinburgh, he remarked: 'I came to Scotland and walked into a battlezone on the very question of sex and freedom.

'They are against any device that prevents the misery that flows from the pleasures. The language is so intemperate that you get the feeling of a minority who wish to provoke a civil war. It is the language of war that they use. The language you expect from nasty people. They are not. They are very nice, kind people. But that doesn't take away the issues that are at large.'

Narinder Minhas at Diverse Productions, who produced the programme, says Howe found it hard to balance his affection for the family with his mistrust of their views. 'He really liked them in the end,' said Minhas. 'They are charming, friendly people, but he disagrees fundamentally with what they preach. It was this juxtaposition between the niceness and their beliefs. Even though he disagreed with them, they were too nice for him to put the boot in.'

The first part of Darcus Howe's Slave Nation series will be broadcast on Channel 4 on wednesday August 8 at 9pm

The man who brought sex to the sleepy village of Glendarroch as the producer of High Road has joined BBC Scotland to head its new soap.

John Temple, a former Coronation Street producer who went on to run Scottish TV's High Road, has been named executive producer for the new soap, which is due to go on air next spring. Temple, whose Scottish programme-making credentials also include Taggart, is notorious for having introduced plunging necklines, steamy sex scenes and a character who once groped Mrs Mack's knees to the previously straight-laced soap. He was also responsible for bringing comic Andy Cameron and former EastEnder Ross Davidson to Glendarroch.

Temple's traditional Scottish credentials will be combined with the zeitgeisty sensibility of former This Life script editor Maggie Boden. As well as crafting storylines for This Life's angst-ridden 20-somethings, Boden, who will be producer on the as-yet-unnamed Scottish soap, has also worked on Casualty and BBC1's acclaimed school drama Hope And Glory, which starred Lenny Henry.

The BBC is currently recruiting actors for the soap but is remaining tight-lipped about its setting and characters. The original plan was to locate the show in an upmarket tenement building. It is understood the cast will be multi-racial and their characters young and aspirational.

Executives announced last week that they were hoping to film the £5 million-a-year soap in a disused whisky warehouse in Glasgow. They have earmarked 10 acres of the former Guinness UDV Strathleven Packaging Plant in Dumbarton to house the 100-strong production team, crew, and cast.

If West Dunbartonshire Council grants planning permission, work will begin this summer on building a studio and sets for the show.