In The Old Folks at Home, a lunch at Hadleigh’s club with Colonel Chamberlayne puts Walter’s on the trail of an intriguing story at a prestigious private girls school in Westdale. There is growing unrest from the parents to get rid of headmistress Georgina Barrett because of her progressive attitudes. She regularly sends her pupils out to help the elderly in the poorer sections of town.
There are problems when one of the girls claims to have been assaulted by the old man she was sent to help. Its clear there is more to the story than there seems and because Julia is an old friend of Hadleigh’s he wants Walters to personally investigate.
Of course it turns out that both the girl, Audrey, and the old man, Jacko Pendlebury (played by the always good value Joe Gladwin) have their own reasons for sticking to their stories. Audrey wanted nothing to do with the welfare work of Miss Barrett and got a lot of milage out of Jacko’s “goosing” of her. What Jacko did was highly inappropriate of course but he had convinced himself that Audrey was really from the dreaded Welfare (who he thought wanted to put him in a home) and he needed to do something to scare her away.
Sue isn’t in this episode.
production details
UK / ITV – Yorkshire / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast Friday 20 September 1968 at 9.00pm
Writer: James Doran / Production Design: Malcolm Goulding / Director: Tony Wickert
Series: Gazette Episode 8 of 13
cast
Gerald Harper as Hadleigh
Jon Laurimore as Walters
Michael Blackham as Bill Spence
Ralph Michael as Colonel Chamberlayne
Wendy Gifford as Georgina Barrett
Diane Mercer as Julia
Winifred Dennis as Mrs Wright
Elizabeth Begley as Mrs Parsons
Joe Gladwin as Jacko Pendlebury
Ann Holloway as Audrey
Hilary Mason as Mrs Miller
