Barriers

37 years ago on a Sunday afternoon this was required viewing.! Just finished watching it again after all these years, and well! Each week, great! Back to back, and in hindsight, this series has more holes than a Swiss cheese. Billy wants a damn good slap; Robert Addie, dressed as a purple crested spaceman, haggling with a drunk in a Newcastle Cafe (spam I think?). The drunk, considering it was 1981, was haggling pre decimalisation, was it tanner or tenner! I don't think these are spoilers, they just made me laugh! Throughout, I kept thinking that I'd missed an episode, I hadn't. The continuity of everything back to back was excruciating, laughable, and innocently beautiful. Mr Whittaker and Pricey were wonderful, and considering it was TyneTees, I didn't see anyone from Byker Grove or Spender in it! Bravo to TV from a more naive era, and although I've been a little bit critical, I had a great, yet brief period wallowing in a pool of sweet nostalgia. Well done!!

I am glad to have found as much information as this! I've been searching the 'net about once a year trying to find a recording of the theme to Barriers. At least now I have the composer's name (Bert Grund) thanks to this website. I spent several Sundays trying to record the theme on a tape player, but none of the tapes survived my childhood. Anyone who can direct me to a sound-clip will be very gratefully thanked :-) Hero Billy Stanyon was a flautist, although I don't recall that he actually ever played this piece of music. He attended a music college of some kind in Austria, from what I remember, possibly Vienna. Other than that most of what I remember has already been covered in other posts.

And yes - as Karencole remarked - it was the blonde hair that I remember best about him/Benedict Taylor.

Barriers seems to be one of those series that have been lost in the mists of time. After it's transmission in the early 80s and one repeat, it's since sunk without trace. This is a crying shame.

I originally watched this when it was transmitted in the Southern TV region on Sunday afternoons and was classic tea-time viewing. Although I don't remember a great deal about the program, a few things stuck in my mind. Most notable were the unforgettable titles. The mournful flute music accompanying the attempted escape across an East European border and the subsequent car crash (and that scene has left me with an abiding love of 'fintail' Mercedes models as they used a Merc 200). Although it wasn't obvious at the start, the solution to the series' mystery was in these titles.

The plot about a young music student trying to unravel what really happened when he discovers he was adopted had lots of twists and turns but Barriers was a surprisingly 'adult' children's drama. Benedict Taylor was excellent as Billy and it was a shame he didn't do a lot more.

This was a quality drama, well overdue for a DVD release and I hope I'll get the chance to re-acquaint myself with it in the future.

A fond memory from my childhood

what a relief to find out I am not imagining this programme! the summary from taxman is great. I too remember finding it haunting and not particularly family viewing, I must have been 10/11 at the time I watched it. I think for a girl that age part of attraction was lead's very blond hair, and his permanently sad state. The theme was played on a flute I recall - although I cannot remember how it went. I think the intro showed him playing it - or maybe he played a flute in the programme and especially when he was sad? Maybe I am destined never to know how it ended or to see clip or hear the tune, but at least I now know it is not just me.

For some reason I always seem to remember this being shown on Channel 4 when it first started back in 1982.

It never came across to me as a children's drama (even though it was) and I always felt that I was watching something that the adults wouldn't want me to. The opening credits always fascinated me, which I suppose me being an 11 year old at the time was not hard to do.

It's a dark night on the Austrian/Hungarian border in 1963 as a car drives through some woods. This is inter-cut with the present day (well as present a day as 1980 England could be) and Billy Stanyon (the character played by Benedict Taylor).

Back at the woods, and after some more cutting back and forth, the car crashes first of all through some nasty looking soldiers with machine guns and then through some BARRIERS (get it!). Naturally the car is fired upon, crashes and bursts into flames but not before a solitary figure rolls out into the woods before making their escape.

This whole sequence had me glued to the episode week-in, week-out, when our adopted hero Billy Stanyon would try and discover the truth behind his real parents' death.

I just remember that not only were the opening credits and music haunting but the show was too. Billy Stanyon was always one step behind the truth and because of this permanently had a look of complete dejection etched onto his face.

Unfortunately I never got to find out what the whole damn thing was about. Maybe I missed the last couple of episodes or maybe it is lost in the mists of my mind. Or maybe there never was any ending.

Looking back on it, the closest I could describe it was as a The-Fugitive-meets-a-Cold-War-Film-Noir-Children's-Television-Series.