End of an era

Never Too Old

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago. Not that I’m feeling particularly old you understand but yesterday’s showing of Never Too Old on BBC2 evoked a rather surprising emotion. I felt as if I was experiencing the end of an era. Silly you may think, given that this episode went out originally in 1977 and I have seen it more times than I can remember on VHS and DVD – but perhaps the knowledge that I was just one of many thousands of viewers watching it at the same time had a strange effect on me. Television usually feels such an intimate, personal pastime and it’s generally only when there are major world events reported that it feels as if you are part of an international community of viewers. However, rightly or wrongly, Never Too Old stirred up those very feelings in me. How many other viewers raised a glass with Mainwaring to Britain’s Home guard – and indeed the relatively small group of writers and actors who helped immortalise the volunteer force? I unashamedly, was one.

The fact that the cast and crew knew that this would be the last episode had something to do with the strange, epoch-ending feeling the episode has – along with the fact that every bit-member of the cast were included. It’s also very sad that Jimmy Beck was not around to witness the end of the series and see the institution that Dad’s Army became – and still is, many years after the final programme was broadcast. After watching this episode, go back if you can to the pre-credits sequence of very first episode- The Man and The Hour. This is set after the war is over and low and behold, Walker is there – minus moustache. Perhaps Walker was just away in Never Too Old – and returned to Walmington on Sea after this episode was set. It’s a grand thought isn't it?

So the programme ends forever – no more new Dad’s Army episodes were made after Never Too Old, and what finer way would there have been to end the series. I defy anyone with an affection for this programme to turn off the television after the credits have rolled for the final time with a dry eye.