The Cult of The Onedin Line

Its hard to believe they are the same man; those two images of the late Peter Gilmore as either the cheeky young hospital portal eying up Nurse Barbara Windsor in the Carry On Films but also as Captain James Onedin SHOUTING his way through the seventies. THAT theme tune (Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian) was my post bath sunday night for nearly a decade and the shocking realisation at the
end of series 2 that women could actually die in child birth (well I was 9) has stayed with me as much as the horror that children are sometimes forcibly taken from their parents when I was similarly allowed to stay up to watch a repeat of Cathy Come Home in 1976.

These 30 min biogs of BBC1 Sunday staples are great. (The Brothers, All Creatures so far, Shoestring and Bergerac still to come). They’re basic clips and talking heads. Ageing actors and directors recalling how much they loved or hated each other. Mostly pure loathing, men being called “scoundrels” and some very fine sideburns indeed.