A Legacy

A Legacy was adapted from the fine novel by the late Sybil Bedford, a well born German woman who made her home in England. It tells the story of an aristocratic Bavarian family in the years before the First World War and the tensions they encounter in the militaristic atmosphere of an expansionist Imperial Germany.

The older son of the family, played by John Fraser, is able to lead an artistic carefree life but his younger brother, played by Christopher Guard, is consigned to a spartan military academy where he falls foul of the Prussian instructors and his brutal fellow cadets.

The great comic actress Irene Handl was featured in a serious role as the ancient grandmother of the family and acquitted herself well. The series was broadcast in the days before the domestic VCR so my critique is based purely upon memory. This is another of those BBC dramas from the golden age that now appears to be lost in the vaults and is crying out for another airing.

I agree with the previous reviewer that it was excellent, but would like to point out that neither family was Bavarian. The old aristocratic von Felden family lived in Baden in south Germany, and the Jewish Merz family were in Berlin.

More than 30 years after watching it on TV, the characters and many lines from it remain vivid in my memory (these include my title, the fact that I still call meatballs 'klops', and very occasionally like to indulge in 'second breakfast') and that's a test of quality. At long last I am reading the book. A word of caution there - snippets of dialogue and transcripts of documents occasionally appear in French or German without translation. Lucky for me I can read both, but difficult if you can't. I have a feeling that the TV series did the same, eg 'Jules a sa maîtresse près de Namur'.

Irene Handl was certainly magnificent in her role as 'Frau Geheimrat' but all the cast were terrific. A wonderful piece of TV well worth reviving.