A Family At War

1 9 7 0 - 1 9 7 2 (UK)
52 x 60 minute episodes

Throughout the 70s Granada earned a reputation for doom-laden dramas like Sam and The Stars Look Down, but it all began with John Finch's A Family At War, a saga which suggested that happiness was something to be swept under the carpet - if you were lucky enough to have a carpet!

A Family At War was a dour series centred around the working class Ashton family of Liverpool, starting in 1938 and following the clan through the harsh realities of war.

The Ashton's wallowed in worrying, revelled in rationing, and if there wasn't any hardship one week they'd go down to the corner shop and buy some. They had no place for namby-pamby emotions like jollity. The Ashton's were born into misery - and that's where they intended to stay.

The head of the family was Edwin Ashton, played by Colin Douglas, best remembered from Bonehead. The cast also included John McKelvey as the particularly grim Sefton Briggs, Barbara Flynn as the marginally less morose Freda Ashton, Colin Campbell as David Ashton and Coral Atkins as Sheila Ashton, a sad deserted wife always trying to do her best for her two children. In real-life, Coral Atkins ran a home for emotionally disturbed children.

Granada appealed to the public to send in their old gas-masks, ration books and identity cards and, for added authenticity, the cast had to have their hair cut to the short back and sides of the period.

A lot of actors refused parts in A Family At War for that very reason, and some extras walked off the set rather than have the snip. Keith Barron bravely took the plunge but confessed: "I can feel people's eyes on the back of my head. They must think I've been inside".

The series was so popular in Denmark it brought traffic to a standstill. The Ashton's would have loved traffic jams - they make people so miserable.