156 Carrie's War

First  watched :  Monday  28  January  1974

I'm   now  reaching  a  stage  where  these  serials  are  starting  to  emerge   in  sharper  clarity   through  the  murk , able  to  recall  plot  details  and  scenes   ( though  not  always  accurately  as  we'll  see )  unaided.  Carrie's  War  stands  out  as  the  archetypal   ( not  quite  the  most  memorable ) serial  from  that  period  where  we  had  tea on  a  tray  in  the  living  room.

Carrie's  War  is  perhaps  the  best  known  novel  by  the  prolific  children's  author  Nina  Bawden  who  died  nearly  three  years  ago. It  was  based  to  some  extent  on  her  own  experiences  as  an evacuee  in  rural  Wales  during  the  Second  World  War. Carrie  is  12  and  sent  with  her brother  Nick  to  a  remote  village  where  they  end  up  living  in  a  shop  run  by  a  cold, ultra-strict  miser  Mr  Evans  and  his  submissive  sister  Auntie  Lou. Another  sister  Mrs  Gotobed  lives  on  a  farm  with  a  disabled  relative  Mr  Johnny, a  benign  witch  Hepzibah  and  now  a  fellow  evacuee  Albert  Sandwich ( who  is  what  we  would  now  call  a  geek )  and  that  quickly  becomes  a  refuge  from  Evans's  austere  regime.  My  mum  used  to  come  in  and  watch  it  with  us  because  she'd  been  evacuated  from  Manchester  to  Blackburn.

It  was  compelling  because  it  put  the  children  in  a  strange  situation, uncertain  of  what  the  future  held  and  subject  to  the  whims  of  a  scary  figure  though  there  are  thankfully  no  hints  of  sexual  abuse  in  the  story.  The  story  reaches  its  climax  with  a  death  and  a  genuinely  spooky  scene  with  apparent  grave  consequences.

Until  a  year  ago  I  had  carried  a  memory  of  one  of  the  last  scenes  when  the  children  leave  by  train ,  Mr  Evans  waves  them  off  then  folds   up  with  grief   that  they've  gone  out  of  his  life. Then  I  watched  it  again  on  YouTube  and  it's  not  there. Aubrey  Richards  nicely  underplays  the  scene  , walking  away,  hunched  and  diminished,  while  the  train's  still  at  the  platform. I've  remembered  the  scene's  emotional  impact  accurately  but  perhaps  got  the  details  mixed  up  with  something  else.

Perhaps  inevitably  the  young  actors  didn't  become  stars. Juliet  Waley  ( Carrie )  did  move  into  adult  roles  as  an  actress,  notably  in  nursing  soap  Angels  where  she  had  a  three  year  run,   but  after  appearing  in  the  BBC's  adaptation  of  The  Lion  The  Witch  And  The  Wardrobe   in  1988  she  just  vanished. Andrew  Tinney  who  played  Nick  had  a  minor  part  in  The  Pallisers  that  same  year  but  ended  up  an  accountant  instead. Tim  Coward  who  played  Albert  is  known  for  this  alone.

Another  adaptation  was  made  in  2004   with  Alun  Armstrong  as  Evans  and  there  was  a  successful  stage  production  in  2009.

155 Nationwide

First  watched : Uncertain

I  haven't  the  faintest  idea  when  I  first  watched  this  dreadful  programme  which  breached  the  gap  between  the  tea  time  news  and  the  evening  schedule.  It  started  in  1969  and  ran  through  to  the  middle  of  1983. It  incorporated  a  twenty  minute  to  half  an  hour  local  news  section  where  the  broadcast  would  be  handed  over  to  the  regional  studios, rather  testily  by  growly  anchor  man  Michael  Barratt  with  the  words  "Now,  news  and  views  from  your  own  area  as  we  go  Nationwide !"

 Despite Barratt's  surliness  that  section  would  often  be  more  interesting  than  the  anodyne  magazine  programming  that  followed. It  was  like  a  televised  version  of  the  Reader's  Digest   and  came  to  be  defined  by  the  awkward  links  between  serious  and  trivial   subject  matter. The  only  time  I  ever  deliberately  tuned  in  was  when  they  did  preliminary  features  on  possible  candidates  for  the  British  Rock  and  Pop  Awards. The  most  famous  feature  of  all  was  when  they  allowed  in  a  stupid  old  man  to  demonstrate  his  claim  that  he  could  jump  on  an  egg  without  breaking  the  shell. The  sixtysomething  guy , in  short  shorts  and  muttering  to  himself ,  had  four  or  five  trial  "attempts "  before  claiming  he'd  clipped  the  egg  with  his  heel  on  the  fifth  go. It's  still  hilarious  to  watch  for  the  hostess's  aghast  response : "That's  it  is  it ? That's  the  jumping  on  the  egg ?". She  knew  immediately  it  was  going  to  haunt  them.

Critics  uniformly  derided  the  programme  and  it  was  savaged  by  both  Monty  Python  and  Not  The  Nine  O  Clock  News ,  being  the  subject  of  one  of  Rowan  Atkinson's  rants  from  the  audience  in  the  latter.  For  all  that,  nearly  all  the  presenters  lived  to  see  another  day  on  TV, some  of  them  still  prime  time  faces  today . It  was  finally  axed  in  favour  of  the  more  sober  Sixty  Minutes   in  1983  not  long  after  its  signature  presenter  Frank  Bough  had  decamped  to  Breakfast  TV.

154 On Tour With The Osmonds

Watched  :  16  January  1974

This  was  a  one  off  fly  on  the  wall   documentary  about  The  Osmonds'  1973  UK  tour. Besides  on-stage  footage  you  saw  them  relaxing  offstage  , being  interviewed  by  Michael  Aspel  and  Ed  Stewart  and  running  away  from  the  hysteria  as  fast  as  their  legs  could  carry  them. You  also  saw  some  of  the  logistics  through  discussions  among  the  band's  staff, the venues'  people  and  the  police  and  of  course  there  was  plenty  of  footage  of  hysterical  teen  girls.

One  scene  that  disturbed  me  at  the  time  was  of  a  wall  collapsing  at  Heathrow  Airport  and  a  girl  being  pulled  away  with  blood  streaking  down  her  face. Seeing  it  again  on  YouTube  with  the  benefit  of  colour,  it's  actually  her  long  hair  that's  fallen  around  her  face  and  her  distress  is  post-orgasmic  rather  than  injury-related. In  fact  no  one  was  seriously  injured  in  the  incident  as  is  explained  to  a  concerned  Alan  Osmond  ( who  comes  across  as  a  thoroughly  nice  guy ) as  they  leave  the  airport.  Oh  well  that's  one  childhood  memory  exploded .

The  film  also  includes  some  wonderful  little  glimpses  of  the  old  Belle  Vue  Amusement  Park  in  Manchester , the  venue  for  many  a  day  out  in  the  mid-seventies  but  now  all  but  obliterated. Even  without  that , Osmondmania  seems  an  awful  long  time  ago  now; all  those  screaming  girls  will  be  in  their  mid-fifties  ,  doubtless  telling  their  granddaughters  that  Beiber  isn't  a  patch  on  Donny. And  of  course,  they're  right.

153 This Is Your Life

First  watched  : Uncertain

I  first  saw  this  long-running  show  after  I  started  watching  Coronation  Street  because  it  was  on  just  before  it  on  a  Wednesday. It  was  quite  a  frustrating  thing  to  watch  as  a  kid  because  I  usually  didn't  know  much  about  the  week's  subject  so  after  the  tension-filled  opening  when  Eamonn  Andrews  jumped  out  on  him  / her ,  my  interest  in  the  programme  usually  deflated  rather  rapidly.

This  was  particularly  the  case  when  the  subject  wasn't  a  sportsperson  or  entertainer  but  some  do-gooder e.g  cancer  survivor  and  subsequent  campaigner  Pat  Seed  and  you'd  get  a  parade  of  people  you'd  never  heard  of  giving  stilted  tributes  for  half  an  hour. You  can't  imagine  anything  like  that  getting  a  prime  time  slot  today.

Of  course  the  programme  was  glib  and  superficial  and  skated  over  any  awkward  episodes  in  the  subject's  life.

It  started on  BBC1  in  1955  and  ran  until  1964  when  Eamonn  Andrews  defected  to  ITV.  Thames  resurrected  it  with  Andrews  resuming  as  host . When  Andrews  died  in  1987  Michael  Aspel  took  over. That's  round  about  when  I  stopped  watching  Corrie  so  I  guess  this  fell  out  of  my  viewing  schedule  too.

It  moved  back  to  the  BBC  in  1994  though  still  produced  by  Thames  and  I  did  catch  the  odd  episode. I  remember  Mike  Rutherford  and  Christopher  Cazenove  being  featured  but  it  seemed  even  more  superficial  than  I  remembered  it  with    a  bias  towards  bringing  in  tenuously  linked  celebrities  rather  than  friends  and  relatives . The  last  episode  I  can  recall  watching  featured  ahem  Stuart  Hall  ( minus  under  age  lady  friends  of  course ) and  I  remember  him  having  to  fake  enthusiasm  for  Alistair  McGowan  coming  on  to  do  an  impression  when  it  looked  suspiciously  like  they'd  never  met  before.

It  was  axed  as  a  regular  series  in  2003  but  there  has  been  a  one  off  special  with  Trevor  McDonald  to  stroke  Simon  Cowell's  ego  in  2007. I'm  certainly  glad  I  missed  that  one.
  

152 U.F.O.

First  watched : Uncertain

U.F.O.  was  Gerry  and  Sylvia  Anderson's  first  fully  live  action  drama  series. It  concerned  an organisation  called  SHADO  operating  from  a  base  disguised  as a  film  studio ( Pinewood  of  course )  and  a  watching  outpost  on  the  moon in  the  1980s. Its  purpose  was  to  protect  earth  from  alien  attack. The  aliens  themselves  had  no  physical  form  and  advanced  their  aims  from  abducting  and /or  controlling  human  hosts. All  this  sounds  very  Captain  Scarlet  and  similar  cost  considerations  affected  the  series.

However  having  human  actors  rather  than  marionettes  did  allow  for  more  interesting human  drama  to  compensate  for  the  limited  special  effects. Ed Bishop  played  the  scowling  commander  Straker  while  Gabrielle  Drake  provided  some  eye  candy  in  a  purple  wig and  skin  tight  costumes. The  series  had  a  dark  adult  tone ; the  day  would  often  be  saved  with  grave  consequences  for  some  of  those  involved . Because  of  this  there  was  some  confusion over when  to  schedule  it; different  ITV  companies  either put it in  the 17.20 pm  older  children's slot  or   the  weekend  morning  slot  often  allocated  to  other  Anderson  series.

26  episodes  were  made  between  1970  and  1971. A  second  series  was  planned  and  pre-production  work  well  advanced  when  disappointing  viewing  figures  in  America  caused  its  cancellation.  Many  of  the  ideas  for  the  new  series  were  recycled  and  used  in  the  subsequent  Space  1999.  

151 Tarzan

First  watched : Uncertain

My  first  exposure  to  Tarzan  was  through  this  TV  series  which  was  made  between  1966  and  1968  and  shown  on  ITV  here  in  the  early  seventies. The  character  was  played  by  Ron  Ely  , a  physically  impressive  stud  if  not  much  of  an  actor. For  the  series  Jane  was  dumped  as  his  companion  in  favour  of  a  young  boy called  Jai. It's  best  remembered  for Ely's  insistence  that  he  perform  all  his  own  stunts  despite  a  lack  of  any  training  and  the  catalogue  of  injuries  he   suffered  as  a  result.

Ely  went  on  to  star  in  the  famously  awful  film  Doc  Savage - Man  of  Bronze  ( which  didn't  stop  me  going  to  see  it )   and  later  became  a  reasonably  successful  writer  of  detective  fiction.

150 Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

First  Watched  : Uncertain

This  bridging  cartoon  series  between  The  Flintstones  and  The  Simpsons  was  written  for  adults  but  ITV  scheduled  it  in  the  17.20  pm  time  slot.  Tom  Bosley  provided  the  voice  of   Everyman  Harry  Boyle   having  to  contend  with  his  three  kids, fat  feminist  Alice, long-haired  slacker  Chet  and  young  capitalist  Jamie   not  to  mention  mad  neighbour  Ralph, a  rabid  anti-Communist  waiting  like  Reginald  Perrin's  Jimmy   for  the  balloon  to  go  up.  Although  a  lot  of  it  went  straight  over  my  head   I  did  find  it enjoyable.  It  ran  between  1972  and  1974.