Noah's Castle - The Complete Series [DVD]

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When the signs of the crisis begin to show, with food prices insanely high, the old are left to afford almost nothing, and the talk of food rationing begins. Barry's suspicions of his father grow. When he discovers his plans - to hoard several years' worth of nonperishable foods in their basement, hidden from the rest of the community - Barry's met with an important decision: To keep his family safe for the long haul and risk being discovered, or to go against his father's wishes and refuse the stores. Este libro me hizo pensar que tan fácil es que pase algo así, en las condiciones en las que nos encontraríamos y que tan lejos llegaríamos por un poco de comida. En el año 2010 en mi país (Chile) hubo un terremoto de 8.8. Donde yo vivo no fue tanto, fue mas el movimiento y alguna gente que quedo atrapadas en sus casa pero que con la ayuda de los vecinos pudieron salir y ni ellos ni sus casas resultaron con ningun daño (solo una que otra grieta). Bueno, eso fue diferente mas al sur del país, allá se derrumbaron edificios y puentes, se puso toque de queda y la gente comenzó a asaltar tiendas (no solo por comida) y el gobierno dijo que era ilegal acaparar alimentos. Yo en ese momento (y hasta ahora) no lo encuentro mal, ya que en ese momento no había gente ''muriendose'' de hambre, pero en las condiciones que salen en el libro no pude evitar pensar como Barry, ya que en el libro había mucha gente que no sufría la misma suerte que los Mortimer y apenas tenían que comer. Alright if you have any intention of reading this book, at anytime, please don't continue to read the review. There is no way I can fully get my feelings about this book across without "spoiling" the plot line for you. So with that being said, on with the show. Southerner” came to the fore in 1968 when Yachtsman Alec Rose received a hero’s welcome as he sailed into Portsmouth after his 354-day round-the-world trip. The 59-year-old was escorted into harbour by 400 motorboats, yachts, catamarans and canoes blowing sirens and whistles. Many TV announcers appeared on Southern over the years and some spent periods with other ITV stations, in some cases regularly working a few days for Southern and a few days for some other company during the same week. Roving TV announcers were not unusual!

Day by Day’ came from the Southampton studios. Faces included James Montgomery who also presented Southern’s arts programme ‘Music in Camera’, and a young Alistair Stewart, later of ITN who cut his teeth as cub reporter with Southern. The very popular and long serving weatherman Trevor Baker always enjoyed live banter with the studio Presenters, a common idea today, but very daring then. owner was DC Thompson, the Scottish based magazine and comic publisher. I was familiar with their Dandy and Beano comics. Owning 37.5% was Associated Newspapers and third owner, also with a 37.5% share, was The Rank Organisation, with its famous ‘man and gong’ logo. Rank were said to be more “in the driving seat” than the other two shareholders, though how true this was, is unclear today. Southern carved both a niche for itself and some kudos for ITV when it snatched the contract to screen world famous operas at Glyndebourne, from under the nose of the BBC. Programme directors in ITV rarely specialised, but Dave Heather who had worked on many church services and live specials was put in charge of these marathon outside broadcasts. The ceremony, music and excitement of ITV companies opening up and closing down several times each day are long gone. It is unlikely that any teenager on holiday these days would feel any TV station was so special that they would come off the beach to watch it as a station, rather than to catch a specific programme.

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Noah's Castle features an actor who appears in many of the TV series of the era I write about - Simon Gipps-Kent. There are a couple of reasons he hasn't appeared here yet: the first is that he was type-cast in the role of upper class youth in the sort of time-travelling period drama which has never really appealed to me. The other is that up until recently I had only come across him in The Tomorrow People. I haven't yet managed to sum up what I would want to say about that show in a blog post, because I'm rather ambivalent about it, both about the show itself and I'm not really sure what I think about it. The series from Southern television was based on the 1978 novel by John Rowe Townsend. It was grim stuff for a children’s tea-time television drama.

Other well received network programmes from Southern included ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’ with Alec Guinness and one favourite of the critics, “Miss Nightingale” about the founder of modern nursing, set in Scutari during the Crimean War and having Janet Suzman in the lead role of Florence Nightingale.The presentation and ITV company symbols dominated sufficiently to make me notice that when I was away on holiday there were other logos less familiar to me, and programmes of a more regional flavour than Associated-Rediffusion and ATV London appeared to need. The leading announcing team in the seventies was Brian Nissen and Christopher Robbie with relief announcers including Adrian Edwards, Jane Criddle, Peter Marshall of Thames, Mike Prince of ATV, Bill Flynn, Ian Curry, Christine Webber, Clifford Earl and Verity Martindil. Head of Presentation at Southern during this period was Peter Pritchett-Brown. A pity Strange-8 didn't seem to enjoy this children's serial as much as I did . Yeah I do confess that I can't remember the show scene for scene ( I only saw it on its original broadcast 25 years ago ) but if memory serves me right this was deeply thought provoking stuff and I'm willing to bet my life that it's more intelligent and compelling than stuff made for an adult audience in 2004 never mind children Look out to for an early appearance from Christopher Fairbank (aka Moxie from Auf Wiedersehen Pet), an even earlier appearance from a young Zammo McGuire (aka Lee MacDonald) and a villainous (and surprisingly good) turn from comedian Mike Reid (although he does contribute to a glaring continuity error, in the location scenes he has a stubbly three day growth and then for the interior scenes it is a full beard!).

In fact Noah's Castle is so far from comforting escapist TV that I feel at the time the original book was released, 1975 (the show broadcasted in 1980) it would probably have been seen as yet another stark warning of what was on the horizon. I have written here over and again about the fear of society's imminent collapse which was so prevalent in the 1970s. My own mother (admittedly an extreme example) hoarded tinned food and had an escape plan actually written out. This may be seen as an over-reaction but the scenario embodied in Noah's Castle was the natural outcome of the 1960s optimistic dream turning sour. In Noah's Castle people respond in the ways you would expect them to. My own wonder is at the level of altruism shown. Some people want everyone to be fed and for food to be shared out fairly. Some other people just want to look after number one. My own opinion is that the more common human reaction would be to look after oneself. John Rowe Townsend (19 May 1922 – 24 March 2014) was a British children's writer and children's literature scholar. His best-known children's novel is The Intruder, which won a 1971 Edgar Award. His best-known academic work is a reference series, Written for Children: An Outline of English Children's Literature (1965), [1] the definitive work of its time on the subject. [2] [3]No matter what I thought of the father though I wasn't prepared for how I would feel about the rest of the family. The most likable was the wife/mother, but even there I found her to be weak and boring. She didn't make that much of an impression on me and in the end I didn't care either way. What really got my goat were the children. There are 4 of them and while I didn't like any of them, I'm going to focus on Barry and the oldest sister, Nessie. Nessie thinks everything her father is doing is wrong, she finds is abhorrent that her father thought ahead and hoarded food for his family when other people are doing without. She would rather sparse out her families supplies to everyone else in the country instead of making sure her family was taken care of. She even moves out of the house because she is so disgusted by her father's actions. Yet perhaps I do, as a result of watching Noah's Castle. I have realised that I have been considering these shows anachronistically, without considering the eyes of the time. Surely reading Noah's Castle in the 1970s would have resulted in further activism and - surely - a relief that even though the world was in a mess it still wasn't as bad as it is shown in Noah's Castle. I suppose Noah's Castle therefore really comes out of the same stable as the 1970s series Survivors - they are both chronicles of what could happen, both alerting current fears and also providing a reassurance that we are not there yet.