Back Home (ITV Drama, Hayley Mills, Brenda Bruce)

In one off period drama Back Home, at the end of world war II, young girl Virginia “Rusty” Dickinson (Hayley Carr) returns to England after five years in America as an Evacuee and has trouble adjusting to her new way of life. Especially as she forced straight into boarding school and equally her mother and father remain distant and caught up in their own problems.

Reviewing the drama in The Stage and Television Today (27 July 1989) Ann Mann felt that it was “a pity that the adult side of the story wasn’t explored to the full. We never really got to know Hayley Mills’ character as Rusty’s mother, Peggy.” Mann also felt that Hayley Carr as Rusty “gave a lovely performance but I was never fully convinced that she was English by birth, as her physical appearance was so all-American.”

Back Home was a venture between TVS and Disney. In 2001 ITV remade the production.

Cast: Hayley Mills as Mrs. Peggy Dickinson; Hayley Carr as Virginia “Rusty” Dickinson; Adam Stevenson as Charles “Charlie” Dickinson; Brenda Bruce as The Honourable Lady Beatrice “Beattie” Langley; Jean Anderson as Grandmother Dickinson; Rupert Frazer as Mr. Roger Dickinson; Josh Drobnyk as Skeet; Michael Clark as Uncle Bruno; Mary Ellen Ray as Aunt Hannah; Christine Moore as Ambulance Driver; Juliette Fleming as Beth; Vaughan Sivell as Harry; Sarah Wynter as Mrs. Hatherley; Joan Byett as School Prefect; Carol Gillies as Headmistress

Writer: David Attwood / Novel: Michelle Magorian / Music: Ilona Sekacz / Design: Tim Hutchinson / Costume Design: Jenny Beavan / Executive Producers: Graham Benson, David R. Ginsburg, Maureen Harter / Producer: J. Nigel Pickard / Director: Piers Haggard

UK / ITV Network – TVS – Citadel / 1×105 minute episode / Broadcast 1989