On DVD - Rod Bishop reminds us of the greatness of DAYS OF HOPE (Ken Loach, Jim Allen, Tony Garnett, UK, 1975)

Paul Copley (centre) Days of Hope

There’s been no sign of any 50^th anniversary celebrations for Days of Hope, a television series Phillip Adams once blessed as the greatest he’d ever seen.

Perhaps it’s not surprising. Even in the politically charged 1970s, Ken Loach’s groundbreaking, unapologetically partisan history of the British working-class, from 1916 in the First World War to the General Strike of 1926, was always highly contentious.

After all, who wants to see members of the British Army tying a conscientious objector to a stake during the First World War and leaving him in No Man’s Land as target practice for enemy fire?

Or watch Winston Churchill as a ferocious strikebreaker; or listen to screenwriter Jim Allen compare Churchill to a vulture and Lenin to an eagle? 

Or endure dialogue like: “The only war worth fighting is the class war.”

Days of Hope recently came to mind when the actor Paul Copley made some brief appearances as a farmer in Downtown Abbey. He was also a farmer, 50 years ago, in Ken Loach’s seven-hour BBC series but that irony would be lost on most viewers today.

For politics, Downton viewers had to make do with Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the IRA socialist-sympathizing chauffeur, who conveniently became an upper-class lap-boy for the aristocracy.

Paul Copley (Downton Abbey)

In Downton, the fiery farmer turned Communist agitator from Days of Hope is now a harmless, benign tenant-farmer for the rural upper-class; while the gormless IRA supporter is now married and converted into the Downton aristocracy. The irony would not be lost on Loach, Allen or producer Tony Garnett.

Paul Copley played Ben Matthews as the central character in all four, feature-length episodes of the BBC series. 

Coming from a Yorkshire farming family, Ben Matthews enlists as a British soldier in 1916 and is stationed in Ireland to deal with the IRA. Disillusioned, he deserts and joins the Durham miners to help in their struggle over oppressive working conditions. He is jailed, then radicalized and by the time of his release joins the Communist Party. Ben and his sister Sarah (Pamela Brighton) devote their lives to confronting the government’s strike-breaking tactics, particularly through the final episode detailing the 2026 General Strike. 

Nikolas Simmonds (Days of Hope)

Ben’s story is counterpointed by Sarah’s brother Philip Hargraves (Nikolas Simmonds). Philip becomes is a conscientious objector in 1916, but is forced into the army and sentenced to death on the front line in France. Saved by a reprieve, he joins the Labour Party and becomes a Member of Parliament in the first Labour Government. Starting out as a social democrat and defender of the working-class and trade unions during the strikes that threaten to bring down the government, Philip’s careerism prompts him into a right-wing revisionist course.

A great deal of the anger over Days of Hope was levelled at the first episode for its lacerating take on the army, government and police, prompting producer Tony Garnett to declare:

"Our own anger is reserved for the phoney objectivity, the tone of balance and fairness affected by so many programmes. We deal in fiction and tell the truth as we see it. So many self-styled "factual" programmes are full of unacknowledged bias. I suggest that you really are in danger from them and not us."

It is arguably Jim Allen’s greatest writing, and as impressive as anything Loach directed during the next 50 years. But Days of Hope has languished on BBC shelves for decades, becoming difficult if not impossible to see.  

It was never released on VHS and only made it to DVD in the collection of nine Loach works Ken Loach at the BBC in 2011, more than 30 years after its first television release The visual quality of the various episodes varies significantly and the DVDs are obviously made from an old 16mm print with scratches, dirt, blotches and reel change clue markers.

There’s been no restoration, no Blu-ray, no 4K and it doesn’t appear available on any legitimate streaming platforms in the major territories, nor on YouTube.

Ken Loach at the BBC is the only way to currently access the series.