A Family At War - Series 1 [DVD]

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Critics at the time sometimes complained of ‘women’s magazine atmospherics’ (Daily Mail, 21 January 1971), or that the show’s appeal replicated that of ‘the women’s magazines my mother used to read’ (Daily Express, 12 November 1970) or even that its narrative catalysts were nothing more than ‘the puny domestic bombshells that trigger off all soap opera, in fact. There's dark, brooding Colin Campbell to begin with, and the beautiful Barbara Flynn, plus remarkable acting from Margery Mason as the neurotic mother of a soldier who goes missing during the retreat to Dunkirk - and Patrick Troughton as her long-suffering spouse. Later a system of total costing was introduced which included all these factors so, of course, budgets had to increase. the most tragic figure was the Mother, who could not live with the lose of her youngest son, and to watch her slowly deteriorate was heartwrenching. There’s a really young Barbara Flynn as Freda Ashton who eventually married a really young John Nettles as Ian Mackenzie.

Each member of the cast delivered brilliant performances in this drama series and it was nice to spot cast members I recognised from other shows. Although sometimes repetitive in parts, this book is a particularly poignant and timely read for Remembrance Day. The lower middle class Ashton family of the city of Liverpool deal with life on the home front during the Second World War.Fade up picture of bleak fortress… time to meet that loveable, laugh-a-minute Liverpool gang, the Ashtons. Schoolteacher Margaret (Lesley Nunnerley) married John Porter (Ian Thompson), who went missing in action, while 21-year-old Oxford-graduate Phillip (Keith Drinkel) fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Stan Barstow wrote one episode, Lines of Battle (Season 1, Episode 3) about Margaret’s wedding in June 1939. We’d been wondering where Philip had gone … there are many reasons why characters get written out of long term series, and plot is only one of them. It is important to remember that this was a completely original piece of writing, not based on an existing book which would have provided the outline of what was to come. We decided to get a box set, and discovered that by far the cheapest option was the Dutch edition of the whole thing.The others tend to generic vaguely Northern, though Edwin retains Colin Douglas’s light North-East accent.

Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today. Hazard also uses ‘Senoritas’ to describe the Spanish (probably inoffensive), Reds to describe the Spanish Republicans, and Jerries to describe the Germans. At that time we recorded on videotape the whole piece from opening titles to closing captions, playing in the film inserts and stopping only for the advertising breaks.

Interesting to note too that this was a series which enjoyed spectacular popularity overseas, especially in Scandinavia where it became one of the top-rated programmes of all time – an interesting reversal of the current British media enthusiasm for all things Nordic. The indirect costs of resources – the crew, the studio, the management overhead – were dealt with separately. The second week was devoted to rehearsals for the studio scenes which made up the major portion of the show. The series is about the Ashton family who live through the Second World War and struggle with the harsh realities that go on around it. It looks as though this programme may be in danger of dropping off the popular radar, not to mention the academic radar; for instance, it isn’t included in Lez Cooke’s excellent overview British Television Drama (* see |Les Cooke’s further work), even as a footnote.