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BBC series using 'maids when young'

26 Apr 20 - 02:45 AM (#4048513)
Subject: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST

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.


26 Apr 20 - 02:57 AM (#4048517)
Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Jim Carroll

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


26 Apr 20 - 03:02 AM (#4048518)
Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST

I think it had an English setting.


26 Apr 20 - 03:22 AM (#4048520)
Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Mo the caller

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.


26 Apr 20 - 06:55 AM (#4048560)
Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: GUEST,GUEST, Louise Burbidge

This sounds like Esther Waters, by George Moore.


26 Apr 20 - 07:21 AM (#4048565)
Subject: RE: BBC series using 'maids when young'
From: Mo the caller

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.