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Wigan Album

Battle of the Somme Film

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Somme Film Wigan
Somme Film Wigan
Photo: RON HUNT
Views: 3,652
Item #: 23558
Photograph taken during filming for a film series about the Battle of the Somme on ITV dated 13.09.67

Comment by: Joseph on 13th June 2013 at 21:20

INHERITANCE

British drama series following generations of two families.

10 episodes of 60 minute duration. Granada Television 1967


Set against the background of the development of the textile industry 'Inheritance' was a novel written by Dr. Phyllis Bentley and although the TV series adopted the same title it was, in fact, based on this and two subsequent novels ('The Rise of Henry Morcar' and 'A Man of His Time') which revolved around the fortunes of the Oldroyds of Annotsfield, a Yorkshire mill-owning family, through five generations.

'Inheritance' became one of the most ambitious television serials ever attempted when it reached the screens in 1967. The story covered 153 trouble-torn years from the Luddite riots of 1812 to the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.

To get realism for the series, the studios recreated a woollen mill, complete with working machinery and furnaces, staged bomb-torn battle scenes and sent a train with 18th century coaches toppling over a railway embankment.

John Thaw, James Bolam and Michael Goodliffe were the stars. Thaw played the menfolk of the Oldroyd family up to the age of 35. Then Goodliffe took over to play the older men in the same family. Bolam played the menfolk of the Bamforths, who violently oppose the Oldroyds. Between them, the three actors played 15 parts.

The first episode of 'Inheritance' told the story of desperate opposition to the earliest forms of automation. "Cropping" the cloth had always been done by handshears. Then old Will Oldroyd, the mill owner hears of a blacksmith who claims to have invented a cropping machine which will cut down time and speed up production. More important to the workers, fewer croppers will be needed. The men protest, but Will is determined. He orders his first machines.

The workers decide to fight - kill if need be - for their only livelihood. The war is on, with no holds barred.

A luddite rebelion is recreated for 'Inheritance.'A plot to wreck the machines as they are being delivered fails. The croppers are furious, and a second ambush is planned. But this time the target is human...Will Oldroyd himself. In the first episode Michael Goodliffe played Will Oldroyd and John Thaw played his son, young Will, who urges his father to be more cautious in his plans for modernisation. James Bolam played Joe Bamforth, one of Oldroyd's workers, a young man in the mill whose sympathy for the croppers leads him to join the Luddites. Joe is torn between loyalty to his employers and his sister (played by Thelma Whitley) who wants to keep him out of trouble, and loyalty to his workmates at the mill and the Luddite oath he swore.

The series was shot on location in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the bitterly cold, windswept Pennine moors around the Calder Valley mills and down narrow streets of the millworkers' stone cottages. Sites weren't too difficult to find, for many of the dismal little two-up-and-two-down cottages were still there. Electric street lighting was replaced by gas lighting and tell-tale TV aerials were removed from roofs. In one episode, the production team had to recreate the 1915 World War I Battle of the Somme, in France. They built a second Somme battlefield - this time just outside Wigan, Lancashire. More than 60 actors took part in specially dug trenches for the battle scenes.

Comment by: irene roberts on 13th June 2013 at 22:04

I have visited the Somme; it is a very moving experience. The graveyards are beautifully kept and the young soldiers' names on the little white gravestones are very sad, some as young as seventeen, but the saddest of all are those without a name, marked "A soldier of the Great War....Known Unto God". God Bless them, every one.

Comment by: gideonfel on 13th June 2013 at 23:49

I visited the WW1 battlefields a few years ago. One of the most moving ceremonies takes place in Ypres at a place called the Menin Gate. Every night of the year - and I mean every night - the fire brigade of Ypres hold a vigil for the fallen of the Great War, with "The Last Post" being played and several speeches, many from schoolchildren from Britain. I saw a wreath of poppies placed there from a family of one of the British soldiers killed in that war. It was obviously from the soldier's descendants and read simply "From your great-grandchildren - we never knew you, but we'll never forget you." It gave me a lump in my throat. I would recommend a visit to the museum at Ypres, and also to those battlefields and the magnificent, desperately sad cemeteries, especially the one at Tyne Cot.

Comment by: Jen on 13th June 2013 at 23:57

Did they have cooling towers back then?

Comment by: A.W. on 14th June 2013 at 09:49

I remember the TV series though I was quite young at the time. The two bits that I remember best are the Luddites wrecking a steam engine and Churchill's funeral right at the end of the series.

Comment by: Kenee on 14th June 2013 at 14:11

I was thinking it wasn't a very good location for filming with the cooling towers in view and Westwood power station chimneys just out of shot.

The soldier (actor) on the right looks like Pete Postlethwaite.

Comment by: steve on 14th June 2013 at 21:09

I was working at the CWS Glass Works at the time.The film site must have been to the north,we could hear the explosions quite plainly.Im sure Brian Bradshaw would remember it!

Comment by: Gerry on 15th June 2013 at 08:10

This scene was filmed at ince moss. A few of us kids from higher ince went to watch the filming. We thought it very exciting not realising that lads not much older than us had had to this for real a couple of generations before...it was like time travel to see our granddads..

Comment by: Cyril on 15th June 2013 at 20:02

Didn't they also use the same area for a film about Russia a short time later, I seem to remember reading about Geoff Shryhane being cast as an extra at the time.

Comment by: Giovanni on 9th December 2014 at 09:55

Theres a flaw! The cooling towers in the background. Bad direction!

Comment by: Brenda Grant on 11th February 2021 at 22:47

I remember going to watch them film this I was about 12 or 13 at the time, my mother worked for a catering company called winstanleys they were there to feed the cast and crew and I went along with her

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