When the Boat Comes In — Season 1, Episode 1: A Land Fit for Heroes and Idiots
Drama • 50 min • 4 seasons, 51 episodes • ★ 7.7/10
Episode synopsis
1919: Jack Ford returns to Gallowshields on Tyneside after service in the Great War. He befriends the Seaton family—parents Bill and Bella, and their children: attractive schoolteacher Jessie, Socialist medical student Billy, and black sheep Tom. Billy and Jessie try to involve Jack in the local Labour Party against the Liberal candidate and magistrate, former Major Pinner, who is against votes for women. Pinner not only wins, but makes himself unpopular by trying a shell-shocked war hero who got into a fight whilst confused and scared.
About When the Boat Comes In
When the Boat Comes In is a British television period drama produced by the BBC between 8 January 1976 and 21 April 1981. Taking place between 1919 to 1937, Jack Ford is a veteran of The Great War who returns to his poverty-stricken (fictional) town of Gallowshield in the North East of England. It dramatises the interwar political struggles of the 1920s and 1930s, and explores the impact of national and international politics upon Ford and those around him.