"Sam" (1973) TV series 1973-1975

User Rating:

8.4/10   

Creator:

John Finch

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3

Release Date:

12 June 1973 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Michael Goodliffe	...	Jack Barraclough (36 episodes, 1973-1975)
Alethea Charlton	...	Ethel Barraclough (35 episodes, 1973-1975)
James Hazeldine	...	Frank Barraclough (26 episodes, 1973-1975)
Dorothy White	...	Eileen Barraclough / ... (25 episodes, 1973-1975)
Mark McManus	...	Sam Wilson (24 episodes, 1974-1975)
Ray Smith	...	George Barraclough (23 episodes, 1973-1975)
Maggie Jones	...	Polly Barraclough (21 episodes, 1973-1975)
Kevin Moreton	...	Sam Wilson / ... (19 episodes, 1973-1975)
Jennifer Hilary	...	Sarah Wilson / ... (19 episodes, 1974-1975)
John Price	...	Alan Dakin (18 episodes, 1973-1974)
Cherith Mellor	...	Cassie Crossman / ... (18 episodes, 1974-1975)
Alan David	...	Maurice 'Granny' Naylor / ... (15 episodes, 1973-1975)

Runtime:

60 min (39 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Granada Television

Life Down't Pit.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I thought the first series of 'Sam' was an extremely well-observed and gritty piece of drama.

Here we meet young 'Sam', a lad growing-up fast, as kids were destined and expected to do in those days of heavy industry. By the age of 15; you were presumed to be a man in all but years.

The programme was based in West Yorkshire where my family had roots, and as a young child I had personal experience of customs and attitudes that only came to a close with the miners' strike during the 1980's and the subsequent sweeping pit-closures that followed a decade after this first series. I even had a grandfather named Barraclough, like the patriarch of Sam's own family.

This program painted a very convincing portrait of the lack of expectations and opportunities for upward-mobility amongst people who were born under the shadow of the pit-head. You were a manual worker, and wore your class with pride. You went down the pit. Like your father, brothers, and uncles and grandfathers before them: without question, almost without exception; you did what they did. Communities were close-knit. They laboured together, played together, and often - when there was a disaster down below - they died together. Words cannot describe the wretched hopelessness of those who longed for something other than this fatal inevitability, any more than the pride and earnest stoicism of those who accepted it as their lot. I've never met braver, better men, nor yet more courageous and committed wives and mothers.

The pits are gone now. And many would utter heartfelt relief at their passing. But something else has been taken from the people that can never be replaced. It's less easy to define; unity against adversity perhaps: a resolute belief in the common good. Crime was non existent. You really could leave your door open, never mind unlocked.

Those who afterwards took their redundancy pay made the best of a bad thing. Little alternative help or employment was offered. And there is a limit to the number of minicabs and take-away food shops a community actually needs.

'Sam', the first series, recreated that bygone world of Northern English life that I and many others can just about remember, but which must soon pass into the reference archive of history after my generation has gone. Subsequent series lost the freshness and originality of the first and lapsed into little more than an introspective kitchen-sink drama.

The program also employed an excellent theme-tune featuring a solo trumpet played in the typical key of a colliery band. It had a cheesy melody that seems suggestive of youthful hope whilst at the same time containing a tone of reconciliation to the inevitability of its blighting.

I'd like to be more optimistic, but I can't.

Watch it yourself if you get the chance. But if you're the fortunate progeny of white-collar workers in safe pen-pushing jobs, then it's unlikely to visit you with the same baggage of experience and memories with which it haunts me.

Failing this; try 'Kes'. That's a very similar example of doomed young hope growing up north.