Sherwood Forester

Issue 9 - December 2005

Morley Peters provides us with memories of his childhood and in particular "The Adventures".

Wisley Common (2)

In September we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the first transmission of “The Adventures”.  It was also a celebration of our childhood memories.  We are the children of the Cold War era, the generation known as “Baby Boomers”. Our favourite TV series was an important part of our shared cultural experience.

Morley Peters provides us with memories of his childhood and in particular "The Adventures".

I was very fortunate in that I was twelve at the time “The Adventures” were first shown, and living in London in 1955. I grew up loving the characters and the actors who played them.

There was quite a gang of us children at the time, and we used to re-enact the episodes on the bombsites in our road, or we would catch the bus to Roehampton Woods during the long hot summer holidays - that would be our Sherwood Forest.  I left London in 1960 to live in Bath, where they had not long had ITV, which was known as TWW there. “The Adventures” were being shown in Bath at the time, so I was able to see them all again.

Thinking about the actors who played the characters so well, Richard Greene - the definitive Robin Hood, Alexander Gauge - Friar Tuck, Archie Duncan - Little John, Bernadette O’Farrell as Maid Marian.  I remember there was quite an outcry from viewers at the time begging her to stay, after only two series.  As we well know, she was replaced by Patricia Driscoll who made the part her own in the third and fourth series.  I do have a preference for Pat, but whichever episode I am watching, be it Pat or Bernadette, I don’t really mind.

Alan Weatley as the Sheriff - you could not fault him; he did seem really evil to us children at the time. I remember reading in the fifties that a gang of children was waiting outside the studios for him to come out and they pelted him with stones and scratched the side of his car.  Watching him now, though, he seems more amusing than evil.

John Arnatt took over from Alan as the deputy Sheriff in “The Devil You Don’t Know”, which is one of my favourite episodes.  He was, and still is, evil and out to get Robin and the band, no matter what.

The series was that well made - good writers, producers, and actors that you cannot fault it even now. Long live “The Adventures”!

In the second episode, “The Moneylender”, mortally wounded Will Scatlock said to Robin: “You are an odd sort, Robin, but you are the man they’ll remember”.  We have remembered this unique character - Richard Greene’s Robin - since we were children in the 1960s.  And we are not going to forget him - ever…

Richard Greene had an extraordinary ability to project emotions and physical sensations by subtle, understated means - exuberant energy, tension and uncertainty, even physical pain and weariness.  He knew how to establish emotional contact with the viewers, and to elicit not just admiration, but also empathy and understanding.  And his Robin had emotional depth and complexity not usually found in action heroes of children’s programmes.

Robin’s smile lit up the screen.  When he was worried, we could feel the tension.  When he was wounded and in pain, we felt it, too.  Whether that was by sheer force of his own charismatic personality, or his acting ability, or both – that would be for film experts to decide.  We, the young viewers, knew that when we first saw Richard Greene’s Robin Hood, we met not only the legendary hero, but also a real person, who became an unforgettable presence in our memory and imagination.

                                                                “Fellow Dreamers”

Lady of Locksley:  “Dead or Alive” – this is the first episode in which we meet Little John and Maid Marian, two people who are so important in the life of Robin Hood.  The episode is mainly about Little John and how he becomes an outlaw. 

Little John makes his entrance, literally, carrying an enormous log for the fire of the Earl of Bedford.  The Earl tries to impress his lady friend/wife (?) by telling John to remove his tunic and display his broad shoulders, as if he was a piece of furniture instead of a human being.  It must have been so degrading for a man like John, but he was a serf, and therefore owned by the earl and forced to do as he was told.  The earl then tells John to flex his muscles to show the lady.  John has had enough by this time, and does exactly as he is told, but not quite the way the earl intended.  He picks the earl up and sits him high up on a window ledge, much to the amusement of the lady who likens him to a little puppet!  When the servants arrive to the earl’s call for help, they are loath to tackle John and decide their first task is to remove the earl from the ledge, again to the amusement of his lady when they all fall on the floor.

John escapes from the guards, of course, and makes his way to the edge of the forest where he spends the night near the river.  Early in the morning he meets the servant girl who works at the Blue Boar Inn.  When she hears why he is there she offers him breakfast before the inn gets too busy.  It’s too late when they arrive, because the earl’s guards are already there and recognise him at once, despite the girl’s pretence that John is her cousin from the other side of Nottingham.  Forcing John to drop his pretence, the sergeant tells him that all he has to do to become a free yeoman and earn 20 silver marks a year, is to go into the forest and bring him back one outlaw.

The sheriff of Nottingham wasn’t too pleased when he heard that one man had been sent to do what a whole garrison of his had failed.  Lady Marian was visiting the Sheriff when the sergeant arrived. On this our first encounter with Marian we learn that there is a relationship between her and the Sheriff, but are left wondering exactly what it is.  “Woman, they say, needs a man, but you choose to live alone”, he says, to which she tells him he’d promised not to propose again during Lent!

John’s progress through the forest was well telegraphed by the outlaws, so Robin went to meet this giant of a man.  They met when neither man would let the other pass on the single log bridge.  I loved Robin’s description of the last fight he had with a giant, only getting hurt after he had beaten him!  His humor came through several times in this scene, telling John to “stop your prattling, little man” and, when he fell in the water, calling John a “great oaf”, but with a twinkle in his eye.

Once Robin and John are on dry land, Robin tells him a little about the outlaws, assures him that their honor is with the King (Richard), and invites John to join them.  Finding out that the outlaws aren’t the traitors he imagined them to be was a surprise to him, but the offer of financial stability and complete freedom was a temptation too big to ignore, and so he still let Robin lead him back to the Blue Boar Inn as planned.  Thankfully Robin wasn’t all green, and left a trail for the outlaws to follow. 

Robin and John were captured as soon as they arrived at the inn.  The sergeant, and the Sheriff, had no intention of ever paying John or letting him have his freedom.  John was extremely strong, and even though tied up with Robin, was able to break free.  Robin stepped to one side, on the pretence of keeping the young serving girl safe, and let John use his strength, anger and size to flatten the guards on his own.  It wasn’t until all were gone that the outlaws came to rescue them – not the best of timing! Naturally, John now will have to join the outlaws in the forest as he has certainly become one in his own right.

The innkeeper was a strange character.  Eager to see an outlaw captured one minute, and glad to see him finally free later on, he almost appeared as a simpleton.

Elsbeth: The fight on the bridge is one of my favorite scenes ever.  It was so well written, and so wonderfully acted.  You could tell that Robin and Little John liked each other right from the first. 

In the beginning of the show when Little John was talking to the guard at the Blue Boar, can anybody read what is written on the wall behind him?

Marian:  Thank you, Lady of Locksley, for introducing us to the “gentle giant” Little John; he basically is a “gentle giant” until provoked.  I’ve always found Little John be a complex person, who doesn’t have a lot to say.

The Earl of Bedford, I found to be a very despicable little man, who tries to make up for his lack of height by trying to make joke out of Little John.

Yes, Elsbeth, I also noticed the writing - I think it was RIFTE, and I also wondered about it.

The meeting of Little John and Joan was memorable.  I’ve always enjoyed the character of Joan, and she is sweet, pleasant, kind and very loyal.

I always enjoy the comedic relief that is usually intertwined somehow in the “Adventures” episodes, for as sad and difficult as the times were, there are usually some lighter moments.

Suzette:   It’s spring in “Dead or Alive” – have you noticed that the light is different?  I think it’s one of those days when you can smell spring in the air.

It was the very first episode I saw first time round, and when I watched it again, it brought back a very vivid memory - how it felt to be eleven years old. I lived in a state of overwhelming excitement for days, even weeks, with this heady feeling of anticipation...  Robin appeared just at the right moment!   The scene when he comes out of the woods and steps on the log bridge - that was the moment I fell in love. He looks at the camera - at us - at me - with a promise of some yet unknown kind of adventure to come... A whole life of adventure and excitement, stretching ahead...

I think the innkeeper was not a simpleton, but a man who sided with the winner – no principles.  Robin looked at him with disgust, when he said “Quiet, and bring us some ale.”

And I think that the scene of the struggle when our outlaws were caught in The Blue Boar was quite exciting – the sudden violence of it…

The word on the wall could be RESTE, meaning “rest”, in Old English, in Gothic characters – with the German-type “S”.

Of all the Robin Hood stories I’ve read, this is the only one where the fight on the bridge is not in earnest.  Our Robin didn’t care about winning – he was too clever for that!  He wanted to teach Little John a lesson, and to recruit him to the band, so he let Little John push him into the water. But I’m not sure if the story about Robin’s fight with the giant in the tavern was true, or did he make it up for Little John’s benefit? What do you think?

Elsbeth:  I thought the story Robin told Little John was true about his meeting a giant once.  Maybe that was one of his experiences during the Crusades.  I thought he said it to let Little John know he liked him and wasn’t afraid of him.

Suzette, that was a beautiful description of the meeting on the bridge.  Whatever Robin was saying, I think we all got the message.

Our 50^th anniversary get-together was a success – even the weather was sunny and warm!  There were 17 of us, some coming from as far away as Australia, USA and Canada.

On Friday afternoon we had a memorabilia display, and there was a lot to see - various magazines, comic books and photographs.  It also included an excellent presentation on a DVD (some of us are high-tech outlaws!).  We will try to obtain photographs of memorabilia for display on the website.

At about 7p.m. we watched another presentation – photographs of the locations featured in the series, which we were going to see the next day.  We also had an informal question and answer session with our guest Walter Schneiderman (the make-up artist and supervisor on the series), and with a medieval historian Dr. Michael Davis. 

We watched four episodes of “The Adventures”, and it was great to see them on a big screen.  The chosen titles were “The Lady-Killer”, “The Coming of Robin Hood”, “The Intruders” and “The Fire”.  

On Saturday (sunny morning!) we tried archery, and some of us turned out to be enthusiastic and accomplished archers.

We visited several locations later that day (we travelled in our own “outlaw minibus”), including Painshill Park and the Foxwarren Estate.  There we had the opportunity to see the projection room where the rushes were viewed, and the stables where the horses were kept during filming.  We are going to have photographs on the website, but it will take some time, as there is a lot of material.   We walked in “our Sherwood Forest” – Wisley Common  - and it looked very beautiful in the early autumn sun…

On Saturday evening venison was served for dinner, and we had a quiz, as planned.  The winner received a bottle of mead.

Local Morris dancers created a new dance especially for us, to the tune of “Riding through the glen”, and they called it “Locksley”.  They performed on Sunday outside our hotel, and attracted a lot of interest!

Our celebration was a meeting of true enthusiasts, and it combined research with entertainment.  But most of all, it was an adventure – a brief return to the days of our childhood…

We are planning the following fun projects (for long winter evenings), and we would like to invite everyone to participate:

1)     The Timeline: if you come across any mention of historical events and historical characters in the series, any reference to the length of time the outlaws were in Sherwood, anything at all to do with time – e-mail them to us, with the episode title;

2)     The Map: any geographical references, names of villages, signs at the crossroads, distances, how long it takes to get to places, etc.  The aim is to draw a map of “our Sherwood” (and of Nottinghamshire, if possible) on the basis of the series, without referring to a real map of Nottinghamshire at all!

We also welcome questions related to the historical background of “The Adventures”, and historical accuracy.  We are going to submit them to Michael Davis, and we hope to publish his replies on our website in future. (A.F.)