Loss of Innocence

1 9 7 8 (Australia)
4 x 60 minute episodes

This four-part miniseries from Australia’s ABC-TV was set in Sydney between 1936 and 1975 and traced the life and loves of Peter Robertson, a young lad who grows into adult life and middle age torn between the conventional goals and another, free bohemian world.

Episodes followed Peter through boyhood during the Depression – and his awkward encounters with the pushy 15-year-old Muriel (Jacqui Dalton) from down the street – to his time as an unwilling 20-year-old medical student exempt from call-up during World War II, all the way through to his eventual career as a successful but frustrated business executive, comfortably married with a grown-up son, in the 1970s.

Peter was played by David Franklin in the initial episode (airing on 17 February 1978, at 8.55 pm) and by John Fitzgerald in subsequent episodes, aging from 19 to 52.

Monica Maughan played his stern, humourless but well-intentioned mother, with Ronald Falk (returning to television after eight years away from the medium) as his honest, hardworking father who was too busy with his mates to take his son to the football.

Enid Lorimer was superb as Peter’s kindly, affectionate and wise grandmother.

Peter Robertson
David Franklin (1)
John Fitzgerald (2)
Father
Ronald Falk
Mother
Monica Maughan
Eleanor
Carol Burns
Leonard
Alwyn Kurts
Mrs Buckland
Jacqueline Kott
Gran
Enid Lorimer
Muriel
Jacqui Dalton
Julie
Louise Howitt (1)
Carol Raye (2)
Adrian
David Waters

Episodes

1936 | 1943 | 1954 | 1975