Flashback: Weavers Green

To mark 50 years of Anglia Television we take a brief look back at the ITV’s franchise only foray into the world of soap. Rural soap Weavers Green launched in 1966 and while it didn’t last for long it clocked up a few soap firsts and was seen by many as an early predecessor to Yorkshire Television’s Emmerdale.

To some, especially those at Anglia Television Weavers Green was the predecessor to Yorkshire Television’s Emmerdale. However, while Emmerdale has managed to survive the test of time [barring a few close encounters with the axe-man] Weavers Green didn’t make it past the 50 episode mark and is now largely forgotten even though it was the first rural soap on ITV, with extensive location filming, and not Emmerdale – as some would have you believe. To mark 50^th years of Anglia Television we take a look back at the short-lived Norfolk soap.

The soap was written by husband and wife team Peter and Betty Lambda – a format of soap writing particularly used in American daytime soaps. American soaps of the same era as Weavers Green were often created and written by either a husband and wife team or a writing partnership of another variety – with both sharing writing duties on writing episodes. These days soap episodes tend to be written by just one person per episode but British soaps such as Crossroads and Weavers Green are notably different.

The soap had a very rural setting, something else it shared with Crossroads which was set in a small Midlands village. However, the setting of Anglia’s soap was in its home-county, the picturesque Norfolk – with the main action revolving around the vetinary practice in the village but the action was by no means limited to it. The soap’s two central actors were Grant Taylor and Eric Flynn, both of them were vets. In the early days of soap it wasn’t unusual for soaps to revolve around a central character with an ensemble cast surrounding them – Meg Mortimer of Crossroads was the central character for nearly twenty years before being sacked.

Weavers Green was one of the first television programmes to use extensive location shooting – a very expensive practice in the 1960s which is why it was rarely done on fellow soaps of the time such as Crossroads and Coronation Street. The location footage was not shot on film, as was standard practice, but on video tape instead. Video tape was traditionally used for studio location while location filming was done on film but there was always a notable difference in quality of the picture between the two. However, despite the obvious difference in quality it was still standard practice in the industry to shoot on film when on location – a practice which lasted for many years after Weavers Green was axed.

The Norfolk village of Heydon, north of Reepham, was used for the bulk of the location filming and setting although the series did use other locations as well on occasion. The cast of Weavers Green was made up with many future stars with Wendy Richards playing a barmaid in the series and Kate O’Mara a young vet. Both actresses’ would go on to have successful careers and would return to soap several times with Kate O’Mara appearing in Dynasty, Howard’s Way, Crossroads and Family Affairs while Wendy Richards would appear in The Newcomers and, of course, EastEnders. Other stars of the future amongst the cast were Alun Armstrong, Richard Coleman, Brian Cant and Susan George to name a few.

Weavers Green launched in 1966 but only managed to run for 49 episodes before it was cancelled. The twice weekly soap was denied a networked run by Anglia’s fellow ITV franchise holders and because Anglia was a relatively small company, at the time, it could not stand up to the other franchises. It was said that had the soap been produced by Thames Television or ATV it would have got the networked slot it wanted and ran and ran. Several years later in 1972 Yorkshire Television launched its own rural soap Emmerdale Farm and it got the two networked slots that Anglia wanted so. Emmerdale likes to boost about being the first rural soap on television which might explain why Anglia have never been keen on it. When Emmerdale was moved out of the daytime slot and into prime-time by many other franchises Anglia kept it, for many years, in the daytime slot.

Emmerdale, of course, is still running today but had Weavers Green been given the slots it deserved the situation could be very different indeed. Instead of a Yorkshire village soap still running today, attracting ever decreasing ratings we might add, viewers could be watching a Norfolk village soap instead.