[Afamilyatwar-list] John Finch's 'A Family at War' (Part 3)

[Veit, Richard]

[cid:a4858b94-12f8-410f-814a-e38bd88dc74c]



(What follows is the third part of John Finch’s recollections of ‘A Family at War,’ as excerpted from his forthcoming autobiography.)



John writes …



It was obvious that I was going to need help, to put it mildly. The appointment of such stalwarts as Richard Doubleday and Michael Cox were all that stood between me and the immense, frightening canvas of the Second World War. This, again, was an early dilemma. What aspects of the war were to be concentrated on? To what extent would we be shaped by the existing historical framework? I used a timeline to sketch out the unavoidables, and it grew. And many previously unthought-of essentials presented themselves. It soon became apparent that any hope we had of creating a series provisionally titled as a portrait of the war was laughable in terms of thirteen episodes. I faced the worrying prospect of twenty-six hours of television drama on a single theme, covering the entire panorama of the war years. My next meeting with Denis Forman made it clear that he had been thinking along the same lines. “Indeed,” he said, chillingly, “ we should really be thinking of fifty-two”. To add to the burden, he also suggested we would need another title.

Free of other commitments, like ‘Coronation Street,’ I spent two or three days at home. I made an early start in the first flush of an autumn morning, while the family were still asleep, with a thick pad of lined foolscap, a pencil, and the kitchen table on which I had usually tended to work when I needed quiet and concentration, mostly when the family were still in bed. I sketched out the first twenty-six episodes across four pages of foolscap, which I still have. Column one was the first optimistic date at which the production would commence, based on the great irreversible dates of the war. Column two was the date on which the first draft script would be required. Column three listed a one-line theme of the stories, and subsequent columns indicated the actors required for each and the dates of rehearsals, and so on. Upon completion, I had before me a panorama of what the critic Philip Purser described as “the great question mark of our time”.

These were just the basic preliminaries. When I was finished, Richard and Michael and I met to discuss the state of play. It looked formidable. I was aware of their concern, particularly as to the burden placed on myself. Indeed, throughout the production, which lasted some three years, I was constantly aware of their protection, of the times when I was transparently wrong in my thinking, and of the efforts they made to keep me on track.

I had brought Denis up to date with my plans for dealing with any script problems. I had the impression he was trying hard not to appear too worried. I produced my four sheets of foolscap, divided into columns with pencilled notes. I had to admit to myself that they looked somewhat amateurish, but I was sure they were workable. My main concern was that we were going to have difficulty finding writers with wartime experience, which I considered the ideal. I had the impression that the four sheets of foolscap didn’t encourage him.

“If we go for the whole fifty-two,” he said, “it’s going to put a tremendous burden on you.”

Then he added, somewhat morbidly, “What happens if you go under a bus?”

There was only one possible answer for me, of course. “You’d have problems,” I said.

It was decided, more by top management than by any of the foot brigade, that another name on the writing side would be desirable. That I should write all the scripts, with the anticipated production schedule, was out of the question. I had already faced up to this in my mind, and author Stan Barstow had occurred to me as a possibility. At this, their ears picked up. Stan was a popular writer, and his name on the series would be a distinct asset. My only doubts were that Stan was a novelist, and I had no idea of how he might operate within the technical confines of television drama writing. A dinner was arranged with Stan and me in the flat on the top floor of the Granada building, where company directors and important visitors stayed when coming North.

More by instinct than by any previous thinking, I began to realise that there was a distinct possibility—though unlikely, as my position had been contractually established by my agent—that we might end up with a dual creators’ credit (or ‘devised-by’ as Granada would have it) on the screen. Following this, Stan and I went off to Liverpool on a two-day survey and to get the feel of the place. It had been established that we would base the series on Liverpool rather than the more obvious location of London. After all, we were a northern company, and Liverpool—apart from enduring a blitz period second only to that of London, and also being the city I was born in—was the base for the Battle of the Atlantic, in which I had been involved. I had also, in my original format, sketched out a family which was distinctively Northern. Since I was writing the expanded format, I obviously had my way.

It was essential that we get down to writing as quickly as possible. One generally accepted notion was that I should write the first episode, which would establish the characters, the place, and the time. I set this episode in the year preceding the war, it being pretty obvious that we should be aware of the uncertainty which overhung those months, when air raid shelters were built, ARP workers recruited, and Mr. Chamberlain would wave his piece of paper, declaring we would have peace in our time.

The writing of the second episode was more controversial. I felt that Granada would have liked to get Stan Barstow’s name associated with the serial, but I was very keen to include the Spanish Civil War in the early build up. I also envisaged a clash between the eldest son of the family (Philip), who was the closest we came to having an intellectual involved, and his father (Edwin), who had experienced the horrors. Whether this was a wise decision is open to debate. In any case, since no one took strong exception, I went away and did it. This left the third episode free for Stan to join in the writing team. I emphasize ‘team’ since it was becoming clear that the exercise we were about to embark on would call for more than two writers.

What I considered should be essential about this third episode was that, in order to paint an accurate domestic picture of the war, we would need to see its impact upon a young family just starting on their married life. The wedding of John Porter and Margaret Ashton was the core of this episode. It was also essential to have the right cast. It was decided by the Granada hierarchy that this would be the pilot episode—and possibly expendable. With hindsight, I would disagree, and subsequent events might support this. Others might take a different view. While not completely happy with Stan’s script, I felt inhibited (although I was editor) in making the changes I should have made.

I was far too involved in the script situation to join in the casting decisions. I and others were also aware that casting is not my forte. What I do know is that somewhere along the line there was a major casting error at this time, which meant that from this point onwards, in the unfolding lives of the characters that formed the family, I would be tied to a casting decision that I consider to be a major error, affecting stories and having a negative psychological impact on the whole.

There are some things over which the writer of a popular television series/serial has no control but are of vital importance. The first of these, in my opinion, is the choice of producer. Few writers have this luxury, which usually takes place much higher up. The choice of Richard Doubleday, a former actor and a recent producer of ‘Coronation Street,’ was in the latter category, but it was a wise choice. An equally wise choice was Michael Cox as a director and, later, joint producer. Michael was producer of my play ‘Victims,’ which preceded ‘A Family at War.’ He was also a master script reader—and, believe me, they are few and far between.



(To be continued…)


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