A six part series following the fortunes of an expatriate woman who has to return home to wind up her father's isolated farm estate and decides to alter the circumstances of her life by living there.
Rachel - Barbara Ewing
Jim - Grant Tilly
Tom - Martyn Sanderson
Mary - Dorothy McKegg
Maggie - Deborah Doole
Dave - John Bach
Lascelles - Bill Stalker
1) (10/10/1978)The situation at home and some unexpected news is enough to send Rachel on a journey.
Written by Keith Aberdein
Producer - John Anderson
Director - Peter Muxlow
2) (17/10/1978) Rachel's romantic view of farming does little to prepare her for the realities of these people and their lives.
Written by Keith Aberdein and Maurice Gee
Producer - John Anderson
Director - Tony Isaac
3) (24/10/1978) Lascelles declares his intentions, and Rachel is faced with a crisis.
Written by Keith Aberdein
Producer - John Anderson
Director - Ross Jennings
4) (31/10/1978) At last the intermittent bus service offers Rachel a chance to escape to comfort and
civilisation
Written by Keith Aberdein
Producer - John Anderson
Director - Keith Aberdein
5) (7/11/1978) Rachel's struggle with land ownership is complicated by the arrival of her husband.
Written by Keith Aberdein
Producer - John Anderson
6) (14/11/1978) The men are away mustering, and Rachel has to cope with a confrontation
Written by Keith Aberdein
Producer - John Anderson
Director - Ross Jennings
It is a modem drama about a woman placed in a situational where her normal values and responses are either questioned or found to be totally irrelevant.
Rachel Carlaw (Barbara Ewing) is a woman in her late thirties who suddenly inherits a farm from a father she already believed dead. An adopted child, she only found out in her teens when she applied for a job in the Post Office and needed a copy of her birth certificate.
Having been told by her adoptive mother that both her true parents were dead, she is hardly prepared to discover 20 years later that that was not the case after all.
Faced with a marriage that is starting to fall apart she leaves the arid environment of suburbia to look over her inheritance prior to disposing of it, as advised by her lawyer. She also sets out to discover what she can about her father. In a totally new world she finds herself bewildered but at the same time mesmerised by her surroundings. The farm is in a badly depressed state and is being run by a group of rather strange characters who seem to be part of her inheritance.
They are firmly ensconced in a dilapidated mansion which even lacks electricity —but only because her father had never paid the power bill to the local electricity board. A tough matriarchal figure amply fills the role of housekeeper and rules the domain. Her name is Mary (played by Dorothy Mckegg) but that is about all she is prepared to communicate, The other inhabitants are Tom, a quiet old shepherd (Martyn Sanderson); Dave, a farm-hand, a little on the naive side (John Bach); and Maggie, an earthy, sensuous girl (Deborah Doole) who is Mary’s daughter. Rachel’s husband Jim (Grant Tilly) appears in the opening episode as does the local busdriver (lan Watkin).
The other central char-, acter is Lascelles (Bill Stalker), a wealthy neighbouring farmer who is into the game exporting business in a big way. It is he who has set his sights on Rachel’s farm — and Rachel, too, if she’s interested. The interaction of all these characters and Rachel coming to terms with isolation, the “ghosts” of her past and her strange new environment, are the ingredients of the drama. And added to this is the fact that the inhabitants of the farm are not all that they seem.
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