Captain Frederick Marryat’s 1847 classic children’s novel was first produced by the BBC as a six-part series which aired in April and May 1955 and was repeated again in January the following year.
Set during the English Civil War, the series told of the trials and tribulations of the Royalist Beverley family in the days of Oliver Cromwell (played here by Warren Mitchell).
The orphaned Beverley children – Alice (Shirley Cooklin), Edith (Gillian Gale), Humphrey (Anthony Valentine) and Edward (Alan Edwards) – are smuggled away from their home when their father (a Cavalier officer) is killed while fighting for the King’s army and taken to the isolated cottage of Jacob Armitage (Harold Scott) – a royalist forester – and hidden there.
The aristocratic children pose as peasants and learn to survive on their own when Armitage dies, encountering various adventures and becoming involved with the family of Parliament’s new Intendant of the New Forest, Heatherstone (Ralph Nossek).
Alice Beverley
Shirley Cooklin Edith Beverley
Gillian Gale Humphrey Beverley
Anthony Valentine Edward Beverley
Alan Edwards Oswald
John Abineri Pablo
Alaric Cotter Mr Heatherstone
Ralph Nossek Patience Heatherstone
Shirley Watson Oliver Cromwell
Warren Mitchell Colonel Ingram
Colin Douglas Captain Benfield
Robert Hewitt Ned Corbould
Clem Lister Jacob Armitage
Harold Scott Agatha
Barbara Hicks Narrator
Lewis Stringer
Episodes
The Flight | A New Life | Alone | Hunted | The Attack | Back to Arnwood
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