The miniseries is done in thirteen parts, each just under an hour long, as a co-production of the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was filmed in a real public school, Milton Abbey School in Dorset (not too far from part of the country where the mythical Bamfylde School resides), and many of the 'extras' in school shots are actually school boys of the Milton Abbey School. The settings didn't have to be changed too much to accommodate the inter-war period décor, and of course the architecture for the most part was hundreds of years older.

However well done the sets and images are, this is still a teleplay about relationships and the coming of age, not just of the boys in the school, nor even of the lead character, Mr. Powlett-Jones, but really of the whole of society. The inter-war period in Britain was a fascinating time of societal development, particularly in terms of politics. Delderfield introduces this as an ever-present but never centre stage idea through the dealings of Powlett-Jones, son of a Welsh coal mining family, some of his out-of-school relationships, and the clash that this inevitably sets up with the privileged corps of boys at the school.

In the first episode, David Powlett-Jones has just returned from the trenches in the first world war, wounded both physically and spiritually. He is suspicious of the job offer at this upper-class bastion, but the gentle understanding of the headmaster, Algy Herries, encourages him to stay. His relationships with the other teachers are a fascinating study, particularly the gung-ho-warrior type Carter (whose not-always-disabled knee seems to have kept him out of the war) and the cynic-with-a-good-soul Howarth, who becomes Powlett-Jones' best friend over the course of their life together at Bamfylde.

Howarth chides Powlett-Jones at one point about the kind of monastic life that one can fall into at a remote school such as Bamfylde.

Howarth: Some men can live the celibate life. I don't fancy you're one of them.
David Powlett-Jones: What did *you* do about women all these years?
Howarth [pausing, smiling]: Your appetite for sordid revelations never ceases to astonish me.

Howarth reveals some of his indiscretions (remember, this is post-Victorian England, and the revelations, such as they are, would be considered exceedingly mild by television standards today). Powlett-Jones over the course of his twenty years at Bamfylde ends up with three primary loves; Beth, a young wife who dies early; Julia, someone not to be tied down to a school (or even the island of Britain), but keeps regular if long-separated contact with David over time; and Christine, the failed Labour candidate who becomes his second wife, taking on a role at the school as well, not the least of which is to remind the now-headmaster Powlett-Jones that there is a world outside the still-privileged halls of Bamfylde.

The teleplay is exceedingly well done, with the acting and the writing supporting each other in such a way to give real insight into the psychological make-up of the characters. John Duttine played David Powlett-Jones with a good amount of passion; however, I am torn between Frank Middlemass (as Herries) and Alan MacNaughtan (as Howarth) as to who my favourite actor is in the series. Both bring so much to their roles, and I can see myself in each of them in many ways more so than I can identify with Powlett-Jones. For the women, David's first wife Beth is played by Belinda Lang; Julia is played by Kim Braden (trekkies may recognise her from bit parts both in Star Trek film and series work); Susan Jameson plays Christine, David's second wife (fans of 'Coronation Street' may recognise her from that show). Each of the three is very well suited for their respective roles - Lang plays the young, optimist; Braden plays the worldly, ambitious but sensitive soul; Jameson plays the idealist who comes down to earth, managing to keep her ideals intact.

The play does a good job also of keep the boys from becoming a faceless, anonymous mass (a decided danger, given their uniformity in dress as well as age). There are particular boys who stand out, but one gets the sense from the watching that they are all individuals, and treated as such, both by the careful and caring headmasterly type Harries and Powlett-Jones, as well as the cynical Howarth (and even by the more scathing of the teachers, whose style is no longer in vogue).

The situations are credible, interesting, and instructive. The characters are fully formed and worthwhile. The production values are not to cinematic standards, but hold up very well over time (the lack of lavishness befits the nature of the school and the nature of the time as well).

This remains one of my favourite series of all time. The DVD has few extras, but among them are photographs, background information both on the school and on Delderfield, and the lyrics to the school song (which opens each episode, sung by the congregation of boys), by Kenyon Emrys-Roberts: 'Look ahead to a life worth living, Full of hope, full of faith, full of cheer,...'


to serve them all my days   April 8, 2005
 38 out of 38 found this review helpful

Like other reviewers I saw this in the 80s as a teenager and just loved it. For years i had looked in vain for its release on video or dvd...i even contacted the bbc and asked were they going to release it. NO.
Anyway having finally obtained a copy I watched it with some trepidation fearing that it could never live up to my memories of it and that it would seem dated. It did and it isnt. My only reservation is that the colour seems a little faded so that everything is a bit sepia hued. When I went back onto TV everybody was tomato coloured as i had all the settings so high to get a bit of colour in the picture. Its a minor gripe however.
Having read the novel (a fabulous book.....if you havent read any R.F Delderfield.... you should, he is a glorious story teller), the highest accolade i can give is to say that this film really is the novel jumping from the page. Casting is perfect from the brooding fragile Powlet Jones to the shrewd eccentric adorable headmaster. Being a bit of a lefty ,like Powlet Jones it would be easy to take offense at the glorifying privilege represented in the public school system. However like the novel..the DVD celebrates human spirit in all its guises. Forget Goodbye Mister Chips, this has it all..romance,tragedy,triumph, politics, class stuggle, snobbery, inverted snobbery.......I could go on, but I wont!
Why did the bbc make us wait so long?


The extended Mr Chips?   April 7, 2005
 21 out of 26 found this review helpful

'To Serve Them All My Days' was published as a book in 1972, and made for telly in the very early 1980s. It is, to my knowledge, one of the first series that Andrew Davies wrote the screenplay for -- before going on to 'Very Peculiar Practice' and excellent adaptations of 'Vanity Fair' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Apart from the last episode in this series, which is a bit of an anti-climax, he does a superb job throughout. The actors all put in career-best performances, which does have a down-side for John Duttine, in that he is still best-known for one of the very first things he did.

The potential problem for this series is that it immediately invites comparisons with two other productions. The first is 'Goodbye Mr Chips', which took Robert Donat through his earliest days as a teacher, his loss of his wife and baby, and eventual death in retirement at the school. The second is Michael Palin's first Ripping Yarn, 'Tomkinson's Schooldays', which was filmed at the same location (Milton Abbey School), only a few years earlier. It doesn't help that headmaster Herries is played by Frank Middlemass, who also played a wonderfully sadistic retired general in another Ripping Yarn.

But the plot is so good here, and the characterisation so well done and endearing, that the three works seem to enrich each other. Maybe it is because all are sympathetic to the English public school, despite Delderfield putting a socialist headmaster in charge of the senior school and his socialist wife in charge of the prep school. (I haven't read the book, but I assume that these details weren't added just to add piquancy, given that the first transmission was during the early Thatcher years.)

If you choose to buy this series in parts, then part three is the most dispensable. The plot loses a bit of momentum once the South African headmaster has died, and frankly the woman that Powlett-Jones chooses to pursue in part three isn't as desirable as the two previous women in his life. The plot becomes so predictable in part three that you half-hope Carter comes back on the scene to antagonise old PJ.

The nice little irony at the end is that it isn't necessarily PJ who serves the school all his days -- that honour goes to Howarth.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the extras are nothing to write home about: no commentary, no sub-titles or alternative languages, and glorious mono sound. The picture is occasionally jittery -- I assume because a few frames of film were damaged. The BBC would have done a better DVD production job, had they not sold the rights to AcornVideo, but we mustn't grumble.

I suspect this is a series you will want to view very swiftly -- perhaps even more than one episode a day if, like me, you have trouble restraining yourself. Depending on the size of your DVD collection, you probably won't watch it again more frequently than once every five years. But you'll really want to lend it to friends and family, just to hear their pleasure at seeing this marvellous series again.


My favourite of all time   November 30, 2004
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

How long have I waited for this? Since video was first invented. I watched this as a teenager and again when BBC re ran it in 1983 I have read the book so many times I had to buy another copy. I'm in love with David Powlett- Jones right from the first scene. I rationed myself to one or two episodes at a time when I got the DVD. The story gives us an insight into life in boarding school for both pupils and teachers in the early 20th Century and makes you so sorry for PJ that you're routing for him all the way through to the end.I'll watch it over and over.