1 9 6 4 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes
The British seem to have a soft spot for smuggling and a sneaking admiration for the feat of outwitting the excise men.
One such secret and somewhat improbable sympathiser was John Meade Falkner, the author of Moonfleet, the novel on which this six-part serial was based – retitled Smuggler’s Bay for television.
He started life as a private tutor but went on to become a senior executive in the armaments firm of Armstrong-Whitworth, a keen student of ecclesiastical affairs, a respected antiquary, and the writer of three popular romances. He published this work in 1898.
The story is set in Dorset, in the rumbustious 19th-century days when children were enjoined to “watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by”.
Its hero is John Trenchard, a young man who becomes involved in the hazardous world of ‘free trading’ when he finds in the vaults of Moonfleet Church a locket with a mysterious inscription.
His adventures subsequently take him far away from his little Dorset village.
Trenchard was played by Frazer Hines, a familiar participant in Z Cars, Dr Finlay’s Casebook and Compact. Elzevir Block, the local innkeeper who was his friend and ally, was played by another Z Cars veteran, John Phillips; and magistrate Maskew – the evil-tempered scourge of the smugglers – was Paul Curran.
The adaptor, Bob Stuart, was a former actor and stage manager who wrote serials for both Australian and American television, and the director was Christopher Barry.
John Trenchard
Frazer Hines
Elzevir Block
John Phillips
Grace Maskew
Suzanne Neve
Magistrate Maskew
Paul Curran
Sam Tewkesbury
Robert Brown
Ratsey
Patrick Troughton
Mr Glennie
Robert James
Tom Farley
Alan Haywood
Ben Field
Brian Jackson
Mrs Belmore
Nancy Nevinso
Granny Tucker
Margot Lister
Aldobrand
Henry Osca
Johannes
John Dawson
Aunt Jane
Jean Anderson
Rose Aldobrand
Elizabeth Zinn
Tom Tully
James Langley
Ned
Alf Edwards
Captain Hennig
Charles Hodgson