Another quest to identify a programme from the 70s...

[Alice80]

I have a memory of watching a drama in the 70s set in the past - Victorian or Edwardian era, I think. In it, there was a little girl, living an isolated sort of life and she had a nursemaid or something who sang or taught the girl to sing that music hall song, The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery...

That is literally all I can remember of it. I was quite young at the time, but due to my obsession with victoriana, was often allowed to stay up late to watch this sort of thing...I can't place when it might have been - apart from it being mid-70s - and I no longer rely on my memory of where I was when I watched it after realising that my memories of watching the rabies episodes of Survivors and Z Cars can't have been where I thought they were due to the dates of transmission. (And they aired about a week apart...)

Any help on this would be lovely...

Thanks!

[GarethR]

I have a memory of watching a drama in the 70s set in the past - Victorian or Edwardian era, I think. In it, there was a little girl, living an isolated sort of life and she had a nursemaid or something who sang or taught the girl to sing that music hall song, The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery...

The song is definitely ringing a bell, but I'm afraid I can't help other than by guessing. I'm going to punt How We Used To Live?

[Ross]

Pure guess: The Secret Garden.

[fatcat]

Long shot- but if the girl was in some distress it might be Wicked Women?

A strand from the Sunday Night Theatre series but repeated in the 70s

[JWG]

Rings a bell,but are you sure it isn't the film 'The Innocents'?

[GarethR]

According to Wikipedia, the song appears in the 1975 ITV drama Edward the Seventh. But supposedly it's sung by an actress portraying Marie Lloyd, which almost certainly makes it a music hall scene, which doesn't tie in with Alice80's recollections of how it was used.

[JWG]

It's a Music Hall standard.Must have been worked to death on 'The Good Old Days',though my favourite is the scene in Wind in the Willows (from Cosgrove Hall) where Toad is smitten with Lettice Pomfrit (sp?).

Anyway,I watched 'The Innocents' a few weeks ago,and seem to remember the girl singing this-though another song is the film's motif.Certainly,'The Turn of the Screw',in it's various incarnations is one of the standard child/governess stories.

Of course,I'm never right about these things...

[Alice80]

Thanks everyone...

I'm much too old for How We Used To Live as I was at uni when it was on (it was an 80s school's programme wasn't it?) ...plus this was an evening programme.

I don't think it's The Innocents as my mum wouldn't have let me watch it - lol, she had a funny story about how my dad played a gag on her with a mop head round the bathroom door the evening they'd been to see it...the film scared her so much she'd never have let me see it, and she liked horror stories...

I'll google Wicked Women and see if the plot of that rings a bell...

Definitely not The Secret Garden as I have the 70s version on DVD (and I'm still waiting to see if they release the slightly earlier A Little Princess, having found Thursday's Child on a German website...)

Thinking about it again, another memory I have of the plot is that something quite adult was going on that the girl was unaware of...(sort of like The Go-Between as I recall...) and I think it was a maid rahter than a governess who taught her the song...

[Tilt Araiza]

I'm much too old for How We Used To Live as I was at uni when it was on (it was an 80s school's programme wasn't it?)

It started in 1968

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_We_Used_To_Live

[Alice80]

Oh wow, I really didn't know that...thanks...I never saw it at school and only watched it when I was recovering from hangovers while at uni in Bradford...