Kate and the lost Brothers
QUESTION Why was the popular BBC series The Brothers cancelled suddenly in the Seventies?
The Brothers, which ran from 1972 to 1976, was one of the BBC’s best-loved prime-time dramas. Created by Gerard Glaister and N. J. Crisp, with a classic theme tune by Dudley Simpson, it followed the fortunes of the hammond family after the death of patriarch Robert.
The eldest son, edward (played by Glyn Owen during the first series and Patrick O’Connell for the remainder), prepares to take over the running of the family business, the haulage firm hammond Transport Services.
To edward’s horror, his father has left equal shares to his two other sons — Brian (Richard easton), a dull accountant, and David (Robin Chadwick), a young graduate — and, to make matters worse, his mistress and secretary Jennifer Kingsley (Jennifer Wilson).
In 92 episodes across seven series, this drama tells their stories of trouble and strife in the boardroom and bedroom as the hammond family struggles with their personal and professional lives.
It gave a big break to future household names Kate O’Mara, Liza Goddard, Gabrielle Drake and Colin Baker, who went on to play Doctor Who.
In 1976, fans of the show were shocked when it simply disappeared from the screen. By all accounts, the actors were equally surprised.
Liza Goddard has said: ‘I am sure there must have been a very good reason for scrapping it, but I was never able to work out what it was.’
Colin Baker, who played loathsome City banker Paul Merroney — ‘the man you Break: Kate O’Mara in The Brothers love to hate’ in the show — has claimed it was cancelled due to a clerical mistake.
‘I met a lady who worked for the department allocating programme budgets at the BBC in 1976,’ he said.
‘She felt the need to confess that they forgot to allocate the budget for the next season. When everyone realised, it was already too late as they couldn’t take back budget from the other programmes that had been commissioned at that point. They took the decision to keep quiet about it and so we faded away.’
Ray Simmonds, Wigglesworth, N. Yorks.
QUESTION What is the origin of the phrase ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’?
ThIS is often attributed to the 18thcentury literary giant Samuel Johnson and he did say something similar.
his biographer, James Boswell, records him as saying: ‘Sir, hell is paved with good intentions’. however, the key part of the phrase, ‘the road to hell’, is missing.
The inference of the phrase is that there is no use just having good intentions, they must be acted upon to achieve good. The origin of the phrase can be traced to the Bible. ecclesiasticus 21:10 says: ‘The way of sinners is made plain with stones, but at the end thereof is the pit of hell.’
The earliest version that approximates to our modern usage is by 12th-century French abbot St Bernard of Clairvaux.
he said ‘ l’enfer est plein de bonnes volontes ou desirs’, which translates as: ‘hell is full of good intentions and wishes.’ There is a 500-year gap until the phrase reappears in St Francis de Sales’s Correspondence: Lettres d’Amitie Spirituelle published in 1640. It is likely it is this version that Johnson paraphrases. Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION Have there been recent reports of the ghostly Roman soldiers of York’s Treasurer’s House?
FuRTheR to the earlier answer, a friend’s sister and her family emigrated to Australia as £10 Poms. Years later, they came back to england on holiday with their five-year-old younger son, who had been born in Australia.
On a day trip to York, this boy was absolutely fascinated and constantly interrupted the guide with ‘No, it wasn’t like that’, ‘Not when I was a Roman centurion’ and ‘No, we only wore those on special days’.
After the tour was over, the guide spoke to the family and told them that the more digging they did, the more they realised that what they thought they knew about the Romans may be incorrect, so what this small Australian boy had been saying could be true.
The question is how did he know these things? had he been a Roman soldier in a past life? M. Walker, Cheadle, Cheshire.
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