Soldier and Me

There seems to be some disagreement as to when this TV serial was first screened; IMDb have it as 1974, other sources claim '75 or '76. I don't remember myself now, but beyond doubt is the fact that it was truly top flight television of a quality which is all too rare. I watched every episode as a young teenager and, although it would probably be less gripping seen now through adult eyes, I'm sure it would easily stand up against most of today's offerings. The story's main protagonists are two teenage schoolboys. Richard Willis plays Istvan Szolda (Soldier), a geeky foreign outsider in a tough inner city comprehensive school, and Gerry Sundquist is Jim Woolcott, the bigger, tougher, streetwise rough diamond who sticks up for Soldier against the local bullies and then can't shake him off afterwards. The plot is commendably straightforward. Soldier believes he has witnessed a murder, and does his best to convince the sceptical Woolcott. But then events take over, leaving Jim in no doubt, and the pair of them with no choice but to run for their lives from some very ruthless villains... Gripping and warm hearted, convincingly scripted and very well acted, quite why this brilliant serial has never been repeated or released on DVD is impossible to guess. If you ever get the chance to watch it then do so, you won't be disappointed.

This ruggedly authentic thriller chronicles the sinister events that happen to two boys in Britain following the 1968 Prague Spring uprising. Adapting David Line's best seller "Run for Your Life", "Soldier and Me" won the BAFTA award for Best Children's Drama.

The story's main protagonists are two schoolboys. Richard Willis plays the youngest of them, Pavel Szolda (Soldier), a bespectacled Czech refugee in short trousers in a tough inner city comprehensive school, and Gerry Sundquist plays Jim Woolcott, the older, bigger, tougher, streetwise youth who sticks up for Soldier against the local bullies and then can't shake him off afterwards. The plot is commendably straightforward. Soldier, studying in the library, overhears two men speaking in Czech who are plotting the assassination of a crippled old man, a Czech dissident, in a nearby language school at 11 p.m. That night Pavel manages to persuade the very sceptical Jim to go with him to the school to try and prevent it, but when they get there, events take over, leaving Jim in no doubt that Pavel was speaking the truth, and the pair of them with no choice but to run for their lives from some very ruthless villains...

It really is a fabulously mounted chase story, well acted; well filmed and edited but, as was commonplace on British television in the 1970s, shot entirely on 16mm Eastman Color film (so don't expect 35mm VistaVision Motion Picture High Fidelity image quality). I was amazed to see that a lot of it was shot on location in Stockport, my home town, including one of the assassins chasing them through a very crowded Stockport market and people; shopping and fruit and veg stalls being pushed over like ninepins. Somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, there is a magnificent shot of hundreds of oranges rolling down a slope. There are also scenes shot on Stockport Edgeley station and most of it was filmed on very picturesque locations in the Lake District, where the bulk of the story takes place. I highly recommend this set. Richard Willis as 'Soldier' is absolutely wonderful in it. He had previously been seen in the 1972 CFF colour feature film "The Zoo Robbery". Tragically, Gerry Sundquist, while suffering from depression, killed himself at the age of 37 in 1993 by throwing himself under a moving train in a London railway station.

And now a brickbat. Jim Woolcott, through whose character the story is narrated, is a thoroughly unlikeable youth. He is callous; selfish and totally uncaring towards Pavel Szolda and throughout the serial treats the younger Czech boy like dirt and as though Pavel is a total pain in the neck whom he can't tolerate. He shouts at him; kicks him while he's on the ground and hits him against walls. Pavel is entirely the opposite. He is a very lonely boy from a one parent family, a refugee from the 1968 Czechoslovakian uprising with no friends who has so much love to give but no one to share it with. He is very caring and loving and very intelligent. The kind of person anyone of any sensitivity would try all their lives to find. But Jim does in no way appreciate this. You would think that, with them spending all that time on the run together, Jim would have bonded with him. But it doesn't happen until near the end of episode 9, the last episode. Only then does Jim show any concern or feeling for the younger boy, and even then not all that much anyway. All this ensures the audience only have sympathy for Pavel from the start. I would have re-written the story before filming started and made Jim's character far less antagonistic and uncaring towards Pavel.

I was twelve years old when this thriller was first screened, on Sunday teatime, around 5pm if my memory serves me right. I had just finished eating my Sunday lunch and was checking what was on TV, as my older brother slept a few beers off on the lounge settee.

Soldier and Me immediately caught my attention. It followed a long tradition on both ITV and BBC of showing family dramas on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The plot was very simple. Two teenagers witness a murder of an old man, only for them to tell the police and the old man turns up alive. Of course he is an imposter, the old man really did died. And as a consequence the two lads spend the following five programmes evading capture from the killers who are spies.

Unfortunately, because of the then UK coal strike, I missed the last episode due to a power cut. I managed to see part of it when the show was re-screened in 1981 - seven years later!! But to this day I have never seen the full last episode.