BBC series using 'maids when young'

Subject: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 02:45 AM

Which BBC serialisation used the song "Maids when young never wed an old man"
It might have been in the 1980s, and I think was some classic book. The story is about a girl servant who is made pregnant by the son of the house where she works.
I have just started reading Moll Flanders, and wondered if it was that, but no. In the play there was a sister (who needed money to emigrate with the rest of the family) and the heroine gave her the pay-off from her baby's father and then had to go as a wet-nurse.

Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 02:57 AM

probably not the one but Tolstoy's greatest and most neglected novel 'Resurrection' follys the same theme
It would sealise wonderfully if it already hasn'r been
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 03:02 AM

I think it had an English setting.

Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 03:22 AM

Jim, Resurrection, was dramatised in 2007 but that was not the play I was half remembering. I'm thinking of a baby farm in London and an English folk song used as signature tune, not Russian hats.

Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST,GUEST, Louise Burbidge
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 06:55 AM

This sounds like Esther Waters, by George Moore.

Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 07:21 AM

Yes, that must be it. What I remember of it matches the Wiki plot. And wiki says there was a BBC version made in 1964. Which must have been what I saw in the late 70s or early 80s.