The Grove Family
 The
Grove Family, which ran from 1954 to 1957, was the first
British television soap for adults.
It was set in the north London suburb of Hendon and featured three
generations of a successful builder's family who took their name
from the BBC's Lime Grove studios.
The Grove family consisted of: Dad (Bob); Mum (Gladys);
12-year-old Lenny, bright but a fibber; 14-year-old Daphne; Pat, a
20-year old assistant librarian; Jack, who was doing National
Service; and Grandma who was always complaining: "I'm starved
for want of nourishment".
Viewers of all ages wrote angry letters to the BBC about the
atrociously ungrateful Gran; asked for estimates for building work
from Bob Grove; advised Gladys about slimming, Jack about his
girlfriends and Pat about her admirers.
They held their breath when actress Ruth Dunning was rushed to
hospital with appendicitis. The show even had royal patronage. On
a visit to the studios, the Queen Mother declared herself a fan,
calling the family "so English, so real".
First and foremost entertainment, it nevertheless contained public
service elements as well as reflecting the post-war growth in
prosperity.
Then suddenly in June 1957 the series was scrapped after a row
between the BBC and the father and son writing team of Roland and
Michael Pertwee.
Exhausted from three years of writing, the Pertwees wanted a
break and asked instead whether they could oversee the scripts of
other writers. The BBC wouldn't agree to this, hired new writers
but then axed the Groves altogether.
Michael Pertwee later reflected: "The people at the BBC
then didn't have the foresight, the commercial sense, to see what
the people making Coronation Street saw - that these series
can go through quiet spells but they can survive and last and be
important".
It was a sad end for the Groves. Edward Evans and Ruth Dunning
never again achieved such stardom. Only Christopher Beeny
prospered, as the accident-prone under-butler in Upstairs
Downstairs and the gormless nephew in the funeral parlour
comedy In Loving Memory.
All that remains of The Grove Family is a short film. No
copies of the series exist.
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