Barrières

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!!

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.

So nice to read reviews of Barriers. I loved it, I was hooked on it. The theme music was sooo haunting and Benedict Taylor was so gorgeous (I was so in love with him, I think I was 13). Only one other girl in my whole school, watched it. I'm 41 now and was also starting to think I'd imagined the series, because no knows of it. Does anyone know how it ended? I don't know if I missed the final episode (cant imagine I would have) or if I cant remember the outcome or if they never screened it. Billy was such a loner and you just wanted to be the girl to take care of him, lol. I would love to watch that series again. Would be interesting to see what we all think of it now.

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