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IDing An Obscure, Vaguely Remembered TV Drama From 1970s

AnonyJ

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This is one that I remember watching at primary school (UK) around 1977-1980, it was the era of schools' broadcasts when the class would be trooped into the hall to watch a particular programme on the single TV-on-a-trolley when broadcast in the morning (before the advent of breakfast TV and more than 3 channels).

The plot involved children/adolescents unearthing a strange bangle/bracelet from an old burial barrow or similarly very old site, and then strange things began to happen. I remember an old farmhouse, a rustic baddie creeping round a door with a double-barelled shotgun. And that's about it! I think it was based in contemporary Britain (so 1960s-1970s) and it was in colour. I seem to remember watching more than one episode.

Googling these fragments gets me nowhere so it's over to you, my fellow Fortean TV detectives :)
 
It's definitely got the shotgun-wielding rustic - Freddie Jones, leaving no scenery unchewed - and the amulet. Distinct Alan Garner overtone to the whole thing.

Most helpful link above [better than my results - the wikipedia page] thank you so much - I've also found that the entire series is online so I'll be watching some later and reporting back :)
 
I'm tempted too - I haven't seen it since I was ten, but it stuck in my mind :) . You're welcome!
 
I got really excited for a moment - so excited that I just resurrected myself from temporary mothballing. But I am now totally deflated.

For many, many years I have been trying to find the source of a memory of an old TV series - or possibly a one off play - based around someone 'unearthing a strange bangle/bracelet from an old burial barrow or similarly very old site'. But I am sure that my memory is of something other than Children of the Stones.

The most vivid image I have of this in my mind is from, I think, the opening credits - where, against the backdrop of a farmhouse seen in the near to middle distance, soil falls away from a mound of earth, revealing part of an ancient torque.

My only hope is that AnonyJoolz has conflated my mystery show with Children of the Stones. I watched both (and, I'm convinced that I'm justified in claiming them as separate items), and it would have been around the same period. It has always stuck vividly in my mind because I watched it (or think I watched it) during a summer holiday on the South Downs; a holiday which, for various - and mainly intangible - reasons, had a profound effect on me as a child. (A holiday during which I'm convinced I had someone else's dream: I've related the details elsewhere, I'm sure - all of which details are as fresh and clear as if I dreamed the thing last night.)

Ah well, maybe I just imagined the whole thing.
 
I got really excited for a moment - so excited that I just resurrected myself from temporary mothballing. But I am now totally deflated.

For many, many years I have been trying to find the source of a memory of an old TV series - or possibly a one off play - based around someone 'unearthing a strange bangle/bracelet from an old burial barrow or similarly very old site'. But I am sure that my memory is of something other than Children of the Stones.

The most vivid image I have of this in my mind is from, I think, the opening credits - where, against the backdrop of a farmhouse seen in the near to middle distance, soil falls away from a mound of earth, revealing part of an ancient torque.

My only hope is that AnonyJoolz has conflated my mystery show with Children of the Stones. I watched both (and, I'm convinced that I'm justified in claiming them as separate items), and it would have been around the same period. It has always stuck vividly in my mind because I watched it (or think I watched it) during a summer holiday on the South Downs; a holiday which, for various - and mainly intangible - reasons, had a profound effect on me as a child. (A holiday during which I'm convinced I had someone else's dream: I've related the details elsewhere, I'm sure - all of which details are as fresh and clear as if I dreamed the thing last night.)

Ah well, maybe I just imagined the whole thing.

No, you didn't!

I've just watched Children Of The Stones and it's not what I (we?) saw! (apologies to Stu)

Yes, to the mound of soil, the mound being maybe a burial barrow and a child taking the bangle/torque from (maybe) a bony arm, and the item being somehow 'spooky' and/or 'cursed' thereafter. The crusty chap(s) with the shotgun was IIRC an intruder of some sort, not a friendly rustic poacher.

I seem to have a very faint memory that the item shouldn't have been taken, and it was returned to its resting place and all the 'bad stuff' stopped.

Like you, if we saw the same drama, it had a very eerie and compelling effect on me. How old were you @Spookdaddy?

It may very well have been a one-off drama but I definitely saw it at school, during school hours.

maybe watch the entire of look and read ... that was what we got at primary, sky hunter and the peregrine falcon, POTS on the telegram ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vj2m/series
That may well be a source - although it'd be the earlier episodes as I finished primary education in 1981-2.
 
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That may well be a source - although it'd be the earlier episodes as I finished primary education in 1981-2.
that puts us in the same year then, but spooky it wasnt, youre sure it was shown at school ? big scares back then were during armchair theatre
 
Thanks to @stu neville @Spookdaddy & @henry and some tangential Googling of similar strands of BBC Schools output I think I may have found it :)

Look and Read was apparently spin-off from the main Merry Go Round BBC Schools series. Digging into lists of Merry Go Round broadcast titles for 1970 onwards (as these programmes were repeated to visual death) on IMDB brought up this beauty:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10595386/?ref_=ttep_ep6
The Sleepers on the Hill 1 - The Gold Bangle [1975]

Which references the writer Catherine Sefton's book for children [1973], which led to this plot summary/review of two of her novels (my bold)

"The Sleepers on the Hill
Catherine Sefton
(Methuen) 978-0416265002

Two spine-tingling 'ghost' stories set in Northern Ireland and told with the Irish Brogue strongly evident (which could make reading them aloud difficult for some). My favourite was Emer's Ghost, a fast-moving tale concerning Emer who never seems quite in touch with the reality of the classroom and frequently incurs the icy wrath of Sister Consuelo. By contrast it is Sister Bonaventure's gentle prodding towards real thinking in the classroom that eventually inspires Emer to solve the mystery of the ancient doll she has found and the shadowy ghost who seems to haunt only her. A hint of real history lies behind the story which takes its reader back to a Viking massacre of the monks and the lay inhabitants of the Christian community which existed on the isolated headland where Emer's family now live.

The Sleepers on the Hill is a longer more complex story of a remote cottage settlement threatened by the forces of the past and the encroaching developers of the present.
Caught in between are Tom Connor who tells the story, his sister Kathleen, and waif-like Kate. The ancient bracelet found by Kate has disturbing forces which seem to be drawn from Sleeper's Hill. The relationship between the bracelet and Old Mrs. Cooney's cottage are eventually solved and the plans of the developers put aside for at least another generation. Both stories are highly readable. The Sleepers on the Hill being more complicated in style and plot is probably more accessible to the older middle school child
."

Edited to add: It was a 3-part serial



 
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Sometimes (but not often) I bloody love The Internet.
there are a bunch of things ive taken decades to track down ... lets scare jessica to death, based on a childhood holiday viewing ... a one-liner by deadpan jokester steven wright, turned out to be by the also deadpan michael davies ... m97002 hardcore by pj proby and "madonna" based on hearing 2 lines of lyric once in the eighties
 
Could it possibly be The Bells Of Astercote? A one hour TV movie showed in December of 1980 - I remember watching it in school also... I'm going to copy and paste a description I found of it on the internet somewhere...

The Bells of Astercote tells the story of two children, Mair and Peter, who discover a simpleton named Goacher in a mysterious patch of woods. He guards a chalice that he believes protects the villagers from the Black Death, the plague. The children, who are fairly new residents of the village, are skeptical that the infamous plague of the 14th-century could return to modern-day England when so many antibiotics abound, but they soon come to realize that most of the villagers believe, like Goacher, that their health is safeguarded by that chalice. When the mysterious cup vanishes one day, Mair and Peter are as anxious as the villagers to discover its whereabouts and return the chalice to its rightful place in the forest.

I vaguely remembered something for years about white crosses painted on doors... something about the plague coming back... and finally, decades later here it was! Is it what you were looking for too? It's on Youtube if you want to check it out.
 
i think that ship has sailed
I think you're right! - I've just read the description of The Sleepers On The Hill above. The Bells OF Astercote is quite similar, though it's a chalice that was found, rather than a bangle - still, weird things do happen, and it does get reburied at the end, and normality ensues... and oddly enough, I definitely remember watching this at school as well.
 
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Or maybe The Moon Stallion? It's been too long since I saw it, but it's in the right subgenre even if it's not this particular show. And is well worth a watch.

EDIT: read carefully next time, Violet. They found it. But watch Moon Stallion anyway.
 
@Spookdaddy I'm going to get a copy of the children's novel the Merry Go Round serial was based on, but I think The Sleepers On The Hill was indeed the affecting drama we both saw! Maybe you saw it on a sunny Easter holiday?..

Yes, I'm pretty sure you are right.

I've been hunting for a reference for this memory since I first started using the internet - all to no avail, until now.

I remember very little beyond the bare bones of the story - but have a vivid memory of the opening; and, as I've said, some of the other events of that decades past holiday, which I have always somehow associated with that 'bracelet' (I actually remember it as more of a torque type accoutrement) half buried in a mound of earth.
 
Well since this is here I am going to make my third - and last - attempt to ID a TV show that has haunted me ever since I first saw it as a child.

With apologies to those who have read all this before!

We're taliking late sixties early seventies. I saw it on a black and white TV (and don't know if the show itself was in colour or not). My memory is that I saw it on my own in the afternoon, but people have pointed out that this can't have been possible as TV transmissions were limited to the evenings in those days. At any rate, I am pretty sure that I was alone in viewing it - which suggests that I caught it at an unusual time (this was the era of family TV viewing).
I have no idea if this was a part of a series or a one-off film, but I feel tha former.

So it was a sort of psychedelic and introspective scenario. A man - dark haired and handsome (and I think British) was being plagued by visions and or memories (the arrival of these were showcased by shots of blurry scenes of light shone through a gause). He was mystified and troubled - and also two men were menacing him - asking him questions all the time as he lay on a couch.

In the key scene that has stayed with me the man is in an upright glass tube filled to the level of his neck with water. Outside of this are the same two men - but they are wearing penguin or walrus costumes. They ask the man questions and if they don't like the answers they pull a toilet chain and this results in the water rising further - and the water has ice cubes in it.

I found an episode of `Department S` in which a character played by Anthony Hopkins steals a mind -bending drug from armaments producer and it drives him crazy. I thought I had found my piece and watched a bit with excitement. However, the look of it was very different and reading the synopsis it sounds different too.

But I think it was something very similar to `Department S` in feel and theme.
 
Jason King?
Adam Adamant?
Lord Peter Wimsey?
The Avengers?

TV transmissions weren't limited to the evenings. Only on particular channels (I seem to recall that BBC2 stayed on the test card until the evening).
 
Thanks Mytho, but these were all mentioned before (possibly by yourself) and discarded for this or that reason.

The best fit is Adam Adamant. The character was frozen in a block of ice (about which he had flashbacks), was somewhat bewildered in the 20th century and it was a Swinging London type thing - all of which, sort of, fits what I recall. Also it was a kids show which explains the early showing (but not why I would have seen it alone - as I had a brother and sister).

The downer is that this came out in 1966 - too early. I was way too young to be watching and understanding such TV then. So unless someone can tell me that this show was aired again a few years later - the late sixties at the earliest, it will have to be discarded.
 
Well since this is here I am going to make my third - and last - attempt to ID a TV show that has haunted me ever since I first saw it as a child.

With apologies to those who have read all this before!

We're taliking late sixties early seventies. I saw it on a black and white TV (and don't know if the show itself was in colour or not). My memory is that I saw it on my own in the afternoon, but people have pointed out that this can't have been possible as TV transmissions were limited to the evenings in those days. At any rate, I am pretty sure that I was alone in viewing it - which suggests that I caught it at an unusual time (this was the era of family TV viewing).
I have no idea if this was a part of a series or a one-off film, but I feel tha former.

So it was a sort of psychedelic and introspective scenario. A man - dark haired and handsome (and I think British) was being plagued by visions and or memories (the arrival of these were showcased by shots of blurry scenes of light shone through a gause). He was mystified and troubled - and also two men were menacing him - asking him questions all the time as he lay on a couch.

In the key scene that has stayed with me the man is in an upright glass tube filled to the level of his neck with water. Outside of this are the same two men - but they are wearing penguin or walrus costumes. They ask the man questions and if they don't like the answers they pull a toilet chain and this results in the water rising further - and the water has ice cubes in it.

I found an episode of `Department S` in which a character played by Anthony Hopkins steals a mind -bending drug from armaments producer and it drives him crazy. I thought I had found my piece and watched a bit with excitement. However, the look of it was very different and reading the synopsis it sounds different too.

But I think it was something very similar to `Department S` in feel and theme.

Was this in the US or elsewhere? It's just that it's possible to find transmission dates online for UK TV programmes and maybe the same is true for USA? Starting here and Googling episode synopses might be a start! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Adamant_Lives!

Thanks Mytho, but these were all mentioned before (possibly by yourself) and discarded for this or that reason.

The best fit is Adam Adamant. The character was frozen in a block of ice (about which he had flashbacks), was somewhat bewildered in the 20th century and it was a Swinging London type thing - all of which, sort of, fits what I recall. Also it was a kids show which explains the early showing (but not why I would have seen it alone - as I had a brother and sister).

The downer is that this came out in 1966 - too early. I was way too young to be watching and understanding such TV then. So unless someone can tell me that this show was aired again a few years later - the late sixties at the earliest, it will have to be discarded.

British TV still repeats The Avengers now, so it's a good bet that a TV station could have been repeating some or all of the above-mentioned serials a few years later, into the early 70s.
 
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Was this in the US or elsewhere? It's just that it's possible to find transmission dates online for UK TV programmes and maybe the same is true for USA? Starting here and Googling episode synopses might be a start! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Adamant_Lives!



British TV still repeats The Avengers now, so it's a good bet that a TV station could have been repeating some or all of the above-mentioned serials a few years later, into the early 70s.
Repeats of tv shows were strictly limited at that time, very different to the situation we have now. In most cases you caught it on original broadcast or that was it.
 
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