Before There Was Downton Abbey There Was Flambards



One of my dear friends gifted me a dvd set of Flambards a few years and I finally watched it this past week. I was honestly glued to my television set for hours on end! I really needed  to find out what happens to the main characters! That's when you know what you are watched (or reading) is good, when you just cannot take your eyes of it!

I adore mini-series or any film that seems epic in their storytelling. And I am already a huge fan of Thorn Birds and I thought this story was going to be similar, but it ended up being so much more. While Thorn Birds is epic and spans over forty years, Flambards spans about 5-7 years and is set in the beginning of the 20th Century, just before WWI.

Today we have Downton Abbey which is epic in its own right, but before DA there was Flambards.

The mini-series (1979) is based on a trilogy (and after the film a 4th book) by English author K.M. Peyton who follows the story of an orphaned girl named Christina and the inhabitants of an estate called Flambards.

I haven't read the trilogy just yet but I have read raving reviews about them and long to read them....soon!

So, as I mentioned before, an orphan named Christina who also happens to be an heiress (she won't inherit until she is 21) is sent to live with her Uncle Russell. He has two sons, Mark and William and an estate that is slowly turning into ruins. The uncle and his eldest son Mark are obsessed with hunting and horses. And to please her uncle, Christina learns to ride horses from one of the employees, Dick. She learns how to ride (side saddle which actually looks fascinating!) and quickly learns to love both horseback riding and Flambards.

Eventually Christina and William become the dearest of friends and fall in love. William aspires to be an aviator in the age when aviation was at its earliest stages. You see friendships form and tragedies occur but what I found just thrilling about this series was that you could clearly see how every person affected and help change the course of the life of the other. I have never seen that so clearly in a mini-series before.

You watch how the life of Christina slowly alters the lives of absolutely everyone around her. It was like watching a version of "It's a wonderful life" but in a slower pace. Seeing how each event, each decision, and each relationship at some point meets up with other events, decisions, and relationships was thrilling for me.

Many of the characters are all flawed but you can see how they may have become how they are or how they may have been a better person before. I truly enjoyed watching all the characters interact with one another. It seemed so effortless. It also seemed so natural, as if it really was in 1916 and I watching someone's life unfold before my eyes.

Does it have a happy ending or a sad one? What happens to Christina and William? I can attest that this mini-series is worth sinking your teeth into. It will grab you and hold you hostage until you discover the beauty and serenity of finals stages of Christina's journey.

Sadly, I could not find a lot of really good photos of Flambards and for some reason there is little information about the cast and the making of this series. But I did find some-tune in tomorrow for a look at the cast of Flambards and where they are now.

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8 comments :

  1. I remember watching this when it came out. Makes me feel old!

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    1. Awww Josie-Mary I know how you feel-I watched Thorn Birds, Roots, V, and North and South all on tv growing up hehee Gosh the 80s loved mini-series hehe xox

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  2. I've never seen this DVD but I adore these books (and have done since I was a child). I remember srying buckets whenever I read them. I wouldn't mention that other awful soap in the same sentence...
    K.M. Peyton also wrote a book called Pennington's Seventeenth Summer which is nothing like Flambards but which is also excellent!

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    1. Oh that sounds fantastic Helena! I must check it out!! Thank you! xox

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  3. Your description of it being akin to It's a Wonderful Life but at a slower pace has piqued my interest in this classic mini series immensely. Though I'm a touch doubtful that it's there, I'm off to see if Netflix has Flambards, as I really want to see it now!

    ♥ Jessica

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    1. They do in dvd not streamline. Yay! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!! xox

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  4. I remember the series on TV and I had the book and I loved it so much x

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