In one off comedy drama The Greenhill Pals we join the annual pilgrimage of a group of old soldiers who travel from the UK to the field in Belgium where many of the compadres were among the 63,000 men who died in one day in July 1916. The group who include Carter (Colin Douglas) and Bennett (Jimmy Jewel) have been making the trip from Bradford since 1926.
The real life Bradford Pals, members of the West Yorkshire Regiment, fought and died at Serre in France, some 720 of them died in 20 minutes. Granada filmed the war graves scenes at the Tyne Cot cemetery in Ypres.
The TV Times of the weeks (8 Nov 1975) had a major three page feature on the filming. Many of the the extras had fought in the war. One of them Harry came across the grave of one of the two brothers he lost at Ypres in 1915.
Cast: Jimmy Jewel (Bennett), Colin Douglas (Carter), Warren Clarke (Colin), Sebastian Shaw (Ryedale), Bert Palmer (Nokes), Preston Lockwood (Wilkinson), Herbert Ramskill (Hoskins), Michael Atha (Jenkins), Elizabeth Dawn (May), Janet Whiteside (Marie), Nikolai Arutene (Pierre), John Serret (M Cauvet)
Writer: Brian Thompson / Production Design: Roy Stonehouse, Steve Fineren / Producer: Peter Eckersley / Director: Gordon Flemyng
UK / ITV – Granada / 1×75 minute episode / Broadcast Sunday 9 November 1975 at 9.10pm
