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The Flower of Gloster (1967)


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For anyone interested in watching a fantastic series featuring authentic canal folk from 1967, I plan on uploading, eventually, the entire serial from my own archive of British Television and on to my Major Dolby's Cat YouTube channel The Flower of Gloster is a children's serial produced by Granada Television in 1967 that was loosely based on E. Temple Thurston 1911 book of the same name. The series is a heady mix of nostalgia and tradition that offers a unique insight in to the history of the inland waterways, the surrounding geology and wildlife around the canal and also a swan song to the old boatmen and canal workers who still worked commercially on the canals at the time of filming, and before the canal became what its used for today, primarily by leisure cruisers. The cast, alongside the two main actors Richard O'Callaghan and Annette Robertson are their real-life siblings Elizabeth and Mike Doherty who play the younger children while many of the extras were actual real-life canal folk and its screenplay combines a mix of script and ad-libbing.

I made this teaser trailer of what you can expect to see. Happy to be a Patron here, I do own a Narrowboat and will be permanently living aboard it in the next couple of month, I have used this forum in the past and found it to be helpful. 

Kind regards

Major Dolby's Cat

 

 

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6 hours ago, Graham and Jo said:

You can  buy the entire series on DVD from Amazon. Cheers Graham 

Hi Graham, just to say that the dvd is deleted, and it was stopped being sold by Network dvd several years ago, now, if often fetches silly money on eBay. I was lucky to find it in someones collection at a car boot sale where I bought it for 50p ;) I make it my priority to not put copyrighted material on my channel. Cheers

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The boat used as Flower of Gloucester belonged to Mike Sampson from Liverpool, who also operated a converted Appleby's short boat, renamed Peace, as a trip boat in Liverpool shortly after. The photos show Flower of Gloucester at Dutton in 1972, where it required almost continuous pumping to keep afloat. The next photo shows Peace descending the locks at Liverpool for a quick tour around the North Docks.

Dutton 1972.jpg

1973 Stanley Lock 1, Peace, 793 Philip Watkinson.jpg

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1 hour ago, Pluto said:

The boat used as Flower of Gloucester belonged to Mike Sampson from Liverpool, who also operated a converted Appleby's short boat, renamed Peace, as a trip boat in Liverpool shortly after. The photos show Flower of Gloucester at Dutton in 1972, where it required almost continuous pumping to keep afloat. The next photo shows Peace descending the locks at Liverpool for a quick tour around the North Docks.

Dutton 1972.jpg

1973 Stanley Lock 1, Peace, 793 Philip Watkinson.jpg

Thank you for the fantastic photographs and providing more history to this wonderful boat. 

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3 hours ago, Major Dolby said:

Hi Graham, just to say that the dvd is deleted, and it was stopped being sold by Network dvd several years ago, now, if often fetches silly money on eBay. I was lucky to find it in someones collection at a car boot sale where I bought it for 50p ;) I make it my priority to not put copyrighted material on my channel. Cheers

I hadn't  noticed the not available bit. I bought mine on the day they first released it. Cheers Graham 

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I actually appeared in "Flower of Gloster" for about five seconds. When you get to the section where they were broken down in Stoke Bruerne, I am the scruffy bloke in denims walking along the towpath. I never did get payed for my cameo part!!

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25 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

I actually appeared in "Flower of Gloster" for about five seconds. When you get to the section where they were broken down in Stoke Bruerne, I am the scruffy bloke in denims walking along the towpath. I never did get payed for my cameo part!!

This is you?

Untitled.png.4fe3ad2d45d13b379052280267ebe6d6.png

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14 hours ago, Graham_Robinson said:

I don't remember it being in colour but there again we didn't have a colour tv in 1967!

 

It was actually the first Granada production to be filmed in colour, but was broadcast in black and white. 

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10 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

So did I.

Ditto.

 

I watched the series when it was on TV.

I would have been about 12 at that time and it sparked my interest in canals.

 

I never thought back then that I would own a boat later in life.

My DVD copy is on the boat.

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12 hours ago, David Mack said:

This is you?

Untitled.png.4fe3ad2d45d13b379052280267ebe6d6.png

 

Yes, that is me, and the boat the actors are pulling is Pisces, because Flower of Gloster had broken down. Needless to say the "pulling" was being aided by some of our crew, who were out of shot.

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