TV locations for the Famous Five series

[privateer2001]

Since I visited Gatewood bridge in 1980, I have returned to the NF to look for/visit F5 locations on numerous occasions. However, this hasn't been done religously every year! There's been gaps of years due to work commitments, etc, I first visited the Enid Blyton Society forums in 2008 & was amazed to find other people doing exactly the same as me! I thought I was the only nutter, sorry, person to be looking for the F5 locations!

Nah, you're not the only one, ol' buddy. Hey, if I'd have been living in the UK, you'd probably have run into me on one of those outings. Incidents that had an impact on us (whether good or bad) seem to stay with us maybe all our lives. I'll always remember many years ago - I was maybe 6 or 7 - when my Dad made me give up some little treasure I liked and that had taken me a bit of time to acquire (at least in my limited idea of time back then) to a mentally challenged boy my age we met at the beach. I wasn't mad at the boy at all but I was at Dad for making me give it up. I always remembered that as it was traumatic for me at that time.

And I also remember the great feelings I got from such things as immersing myself in wholesome adventures like the Famous Five. I would give anything to be able to travel and immerse myself in that world once again by seeing where the series was shot, or meeting some of the people involved, even fellow fans. I also like working out puzzles, especially visual ones, and what better kind than trying to figure out set locations from 40 years ago in the past? Finding this tree or that block in the same place it was set in film back then engages the spirit of discovery. I bet even Gary feels the same when he revisits those places and perhaps remembers things that he had forgotten.

One of the first books I can remember reading (and still my favorite) is Robinson Crusoe. Kinda still feel like him in many ways. If our "inner child" still remembers traumas of long ago, why not the good stuff too and wanting to recapture those feelings we had as kids? The bad stuff going on in the world today (which we have seem to have absolutely no control over) seems to sap all the fun out of everything, but that can't stamp out the memories that our "inner child" held. At least, I hope not!

So no worries about being a "nutter". There are lots of us, probably many times more than are even here on this forum. Thanks for your input and your great stories. I wish you'd have gotten to meet Michele too, so you could tell me about her. She is someone I'd always hoped to meet and one of the reasons I actually found this forum as I was researching what she was up to today.

[privateer2001]

I just updated my avatar... hahaha I look like I might be one of the villains from "The Famous Five" 70's show! hahaha or at the least "Mr. Smee" from "Hook"!

[number 6]

At first glance, I thought it was Robin Williams in one of his many guises!! His character in Jumanji springs to mind, where he returns from the board game...complete with beard!

[Jack400]

Pity you never got to meet Michele. Do you know: would she have been living around that area at the time? I wonder how local everyone was. Jennifer Thanisch must have lived close to where the FF episodes were filmed at one point

No, none of them lived near any of the filming locations (ie New Forest, etc.). I can't remember off-hand where Gary, Marcus & Michele were living, but I'm pretty sure Jennifer was still living with her parents in Laleham/or was attending the Corona(?) stage school at that particular time. Gary did tell us about his & the others whereabouts on this thread (somewhere!), but I just can't recall. However, I think they all met up & travelled down to the New Forest on a Sunday, in time for the weeks filming schedule. I think I need Gary to come in & remind me what the hell im talking about!!!

According to the Daily Mail Jennifer lived in Laleham and attended the Corona Stage School, Marcus lived in Woodcote, Berkshire, Gary in Maidenhead and Michele lived in Westminster (Eaton Square if memory serves me correctly) and attended the Arts Education stage school in London.
I later discovered that Woodcote is actually in South Oxfordshire.

[number 6]

Cheers Jack! I just couldn't remember where they were all living at that time. Definitely a senior moment!!

[Jack400]

I was watching 'The Professionals' on ITV4 when it occurred to me to Google its filming locations. Then I wondered whether anyone else, not just Society members had posted about FF locations.Sorry if this link to filming locations has been posted before, but, just in case it hasn't.

https://www.techteam.us/famous-five-787 ... locations/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[number 6]

I've seen this before, Jack. I know the German Fansite did a take on it, but I don't know whether it had been posted on this forum. Thanks for highlighting it.

[privateer2001]

I was watching 'The Professionals' on ITV4 when it occurred to me to Google its filming locations. Then I wondered whether anyone else, not just Society members had posted about FF locations.Sorry if this link to filming locations has been posted before, but, just in case it hasn't.

https://www.techteam.us/famous-five-787 ... locations/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, Jack400. I've never seen this before. O.O Excellent page! I love how they put the images side by side for comparison. I'd like to get over there sometime with a laptop or iPad with all the pictures I could find of each location and start going to each site and taking pictures.

I wonder about Marchwood Station. It says the last passenger train stopped running there in 1966. So did the film crew hire a special train for the two occasions that this place was shown, I wonder? Wouldn't it be cool if that train (yellow front and green sides) was still around somewhere...

Btw, does anyone know if there are any archived interviews with the FF cast from the 70's and 80's anywhere online to be read? They must have done a ton of interviews with different magazines and newspapers at the time, didn't they? And does anyone know if "Look-in" magazine just did comic strips of the FF, or if they actually interviewed or featured pictures in that publication, as well?

Thanks again and all the best!

[privateer2001]

According to the Daily Mail Jennifer lived in Laleham and attended the Corona Stage School, Marcus lived in Woodcote, Berkshire, Gary in Maidenhead and Michele lived in Westminster (Eaton Square if memory serves me correctly) and attended the Arts Education stage school in London.
I later discovered that Woodcote is actually in South Oxfordshire.

Thanks for this too, Jack. Its interesting to me to know a little bit more about the lives of these people who meant so much to me back then. My friends weren't too bad growing up but I could've used friends like these to make my life a little more fun in some ways. Love all these locations. You have some great scenery over there.

I'm from Newfoundland originally. The Newfoundland dialect contains a lot of jargon that you don't hear much outside of Newfoundland. I looked this up one day. I found a website run by Memorial University of Newfoundland that mentioned that many words and phrases we use actually come from a place called Old Burton. As I was looking up Famous Five locations in Google Earth the other day, I came upon a place called Burton near some of the filming sites. I don't know if they consider this "Old Burton" or not. But the Old Burton the article referred to apparently had its share of pirates at one time, whose specialty was luring unsuspecting ships onto the rocks (by faking lighthouses) and "relieving" the unfortunate passengers/crew of their belongings and anything else which was deemed useful. I think one of the FF episodes mentioned something about this phenomenon once.

One thing I always wondered about was... does Great Britain have a lot of snakes out in the countryside? Especially like the puff-adder? I always wondered about if the film crew ever ran into anything nasty like that during filming. It would seem especially dangerous to be crawling around in old mineshafts and tunnels, caves, etc, with something like those things on the go. I mean, luckily they did not, as all the caves were faked... but imagine they inspired others to do so... There's probably a "Farside" cartoon that deals with that... Luckily no poisonous snakes in Newfoundland, so I'd have been okay that way! But I always wondered...

Anyway, great chatting with you all. have a great night!

[number 6]

We have two types of snake, Privateer. One is the Adder, which is the only poisonous Snake in the UK, & the other is the harmless Grass Snake. We also have a Smooth Snake, but this isn't actually a Snake at all. Very few people are ever bitten by an Adder. They slink into the undergrowth as soon as they feel the vibrations of anything approaching. If someone does get bitten, then it's usually due to the unlucky person stepping on it or getting far too close!

All around the Coast of the UK, there are a multitude of stories of Pirates & Smugglers, etc. Cornwall, Devon & Dorset are awash with tales of Smugglers plying their trade in the dead of night. These stories, & many more, are easily found with the help of Google.

[Gary Russell]

We have two types of snake, Privateer. One is the Adder, which is the only poisonous Snake in the UK

*cough* venomous not poisonous *cough*

[Domino]

Surely, all venoms are poisons, though all poisons are not venoms?

[Jack400]

I wonder about Marchwood Station. It says the last passenger train stopped running there in 1966. So did the film crew hire a special train for the two occasions that this place was shown, I wonder? Wouldn't it be cool if that train (yellow front and green sides) was still around somewhere...

Btw, does anyone know if there are any archived interviews with the FF cast from the 70's and 80's anywhere online to be read? They must have done a ton of interviews with different magazines and newspapers at the time, didn't they? And does anyone know if "Look-in" magazine just did comic strips of the FF, or if they actually interviewed or featured pictures in that publication, as well?

I read somewhere that the train was privately owned and was giving passenger rides on the Isle of Wight. They (the film crew) had painted it with something to make it look old/ neglected/ dusty- unfortunately when they cleaned that off the loco's paint was damaged.Look in magazine did a feature on the four children. This - I think- may be on the Yahoo group 'Jenny Thanisch' fan site. However, the site has been neglected by its administrator and is largely spam- of a pornographic kind now.
A tv interview was shown on a kids tv programme (called 'The Saturday Banana') made by Southern Television- sadly no copies are known to exist.

[privateer2001]

I read somewhere that the train was privately owned and was giving passenger rides on the Isle of Wight. They (the film crew) had painted it with something to make it look old/ neglected/ dusty- unfortunately when they cleaned that off the loco's paint was damaged.Look in magazine did a feature on the four children. This - I think- may be on the Yahoo group 'Jenny Thanisch' fan site. However, the site has been neglected by its administrator and is largely spam- of a pornographic kind now.
A tv interview was shown on a kids tv programme (called 'The Saturday Banana') made by Southern Television- sadly no copies are known to exist.

Do you know if that Look-In magazine might have been the one with the yellow cover that was shown here on the website in George@Kirrin's memorabilia?

Chris

[Jack400]

It might be, privateer-I'm not totally certain.