I am frantically trying to play catch-up on an enormous editing job that I started in February, but which I lost a great deal of time on because of the fire situation. I'm working weekends as well as in the week at the moment, which is why I'm not around much right now.

Anyway, at night when I've downed tools for the day and Gabe has gone to bed, Grant and I are working our way through the complete DVD set of Secret Army. Secret Army was a TV drama that was on TV in the late 1970s (and, I think, early 1980s) and is about a group of people who run an escape line for British airmen to return them to the UK when they've been shot down. It's centred on a cafe in Brussels. Sounds familiar? Well, yes, the comedy series 'Allo, 'Allo was a send-up of this show.





Anyway, it is fantastic - well acted, well scripted, some interesting characters. The escape line is run by a woman, Lisa, which is terrific and was probably revolutionary for 1970s TV drama.  The cafe owner Albert, like his comedy counterpart Rene, is having an affair with his employee. There's an Englishman working with them, who fancies Lisa, and she sort of fancies him but doesn't trust him. Then there are the Germans (no crush on Albert here, though) - the subversive head of the Luftwaffe, Brandt, who dislikes and is always trying to outwit the Gestapo man, Kessler.  

But! It is grim. Unrelentingly grim. There's never a happy ending to the episodes, even if kids are involved. It's as if Thomas Hardy himself wrote Secret Army, with anything that could go wrong going wrong. So probably it's not the best bedtime viewing - the other night, after watching it, I dreamt I was being chased by Nazis. But it's compulsive and I find myself looking forward to it at the end of the day, along with a glass of red.

Secret Army does, of course, get an honourary mention in AF's Run Away Home. Two actually, IIRC. I think Lawrie watches it, and I think either Edward or one of Karen's stepkids watches it too. Actually Run Away Home isn't unlike an episode of Secret Army, with the Marlows forming an escape line (one doing their bit and handing over to the next person on the line), and even part of the ending - ( cut for spoiler )- has a touch of Secret Army  gloom about it.