tvfilm

4 /1/ 06



In the BBC’s children’s class drama series The Railway Children set in rural England at the outbreak of the First World War, Bobby the heroine discovers that the authorities have arrested her beloved father and sent to prison as a German spy. Of course Bobby is hurt and offended by the thought that her father could be thought of as any thing other than a loyal and patriotic English man and by the end of the series her view of him is thoroughly vindicated, when it is shown that a gigantic miscarriage of justice had occurred and her father was all along the loyal and patriotic English man she believed to be.

Thus in all places and times popular culture reflects the concerns and shibboleths of the times in which it is set. From the middle of the nineteenth to the end of World War I it was generally accepted that the noblest sentiments stirring in men’s hearts loyalty too and love of native land but with the post war revelations off the carnage in the trenches and the occurrence of the revolution in Russia the noblest sentiments became love of justice equality and concern for others.