Summer Wine On-line

Welcome to the official web site of the Summer Wine Appreciation Society, in partnership with Holmfirth Web. This is our tribute to the world's longest-running TV comedy series which is filmed in the Holme Valley, and surrounding villages.
 

Nora

 

"Why do we love Summer Wine so much...?"

 "Pure escapism coupled with expert acting, filming and Yorkshire locations have combined to create this success story."

Summer Wine Writer Gerald Hayne asks the big question...  

 
Most of us cherish fond memories, which may not be very accurate, of the days when we were young, footloose and thought that we really enjoyed life.   When men get together with men, and women get together with women, each sex wallows in nostalgia, and what used to be in their lives whether real or remembered incorrectly. 

Most think that they can recall their schoolchild pranks and men, in particular, spend the rest of their lives getting together at a bar, at sporting events or wherever to bolster up their egos and reassure themselves that they are still “up for it” whatever “it” is and that they are still capable of getting up to all sorts of mischief.   Freed from the need to behave or compete at home with their wives or partners they relax and cherish the notion that they are still what they were…..

Such is the apparent precept upon which the television comedy Last of the Summer Wine relies and which has caused this amazing series, written by Roy Clarke, to endure now for  over thirty years.   Not just men behaving badly but men behaving like they did when they were boys; they simply substitute their mothers, as their original figures of domination, for their wives or females of their acquaintance.  The initial daily battle for independence from parents or, more particularly their mothers, has moved on over the years to their being up against those members of the opposite sex still in their lives.

Add to this the myth, long perpetuated in the UK, that the male is really hen-pecked or subjugated by the female whilst in fact the reverse may be true and you have the basis for so much of the humour seen and heard today.   Certainly there can be few fans of Summer Wine who do not find that the exploits of  the three old men and their friends ring a chord of familiarity as they live out their lives.   The viewer feels fortunate in joining in with what seems like the charmed lives of the characters in this series and there must be many who secretly wish that their lives were similar even though knowing full well that these are of a fantasy nature.   The cast are seen to be in packs – the three older guys, and often even more,  who have no wish to grow up and behave and the “ladies” – an assortment of harridans and nags or perhaps even sex symbols and who, of course, are nothing of the kind and could not be themselves without the guys.  The moral is that they are all dependent upon each other as in real life.

Pure escapism coupled with expert acting, filming and Yorkshire locations have combined to create this success story and it must be assumed that the series will come to an end only when the actors do.   The town of Holmfirth and those villages and locations surrounding it have been fortunate indeed to have hosted Summer Wine for over three decades and the sights and sounds of rural and semi-urban venues have become an integral part of  the whole production being seen as familiar sights from fans all over the world.    People who have never set foot in the area or even the UK recognize immediately the bridge at Marsden, the local reservoir and of course Nora Batty’s steps in Holmfirth.   As an example of the effect of the fiction in that last instance few will realize that the waste land and trees and shrubs opposite where Compo and Nora supposedly lived is now a modern development of houses etc.

So are we being wistful in our need for being part of this fantasy for half an hour now and then?   Are our lives so sad that we envy something which simply does not exist?   Or is it normal to enjoy the magical weave of characters such as Smiler, Barry, Glenda, Howard, Pearl, Ivy, Norah, Aunty Wainwright, Truly, Foggy, Compo, Clegg etc for what they represent – an entertaining glimpse of another world where things go wrong but not that wrong.   Where there is humour, pathos, excitement, passion and whatever else the viewer sees for him or her self when they lapse into their regular visit to the time which is still not quite yet the Last of the Summer Wine.   
It must be otherwise well over 30 years and millions of viewers cannot be wrong.

 

Gerald


 

 

Gerald

© 2000 Area5. The Summer Wine On-Line web site brought to you by Area5 Public Relations, Holmfirth. Thanks to everyone who has contributed material to this web site, including Colin Frost, of Side's Café, Holmfirth.