Tuesday, August 13, 2013

I really should hand over my Hauntologist Credentials forthwith... for the shameful truth is that I have never seen The Stone Tape, or The Owl Service

Nor did I watch Sapphire and Steel (just reminded of this series by reading an advance of Mark Fisher's excellent collection Ghosts of My Life , forthcoming on Zero Books)

(And why, oh why, has nobody reissued the incidental music and "special sound" FX and underscores from Sapphire and Steel?)



Stone Tape and Owl Service can probably be explained by the fact that we didn't have a TV set for a good chunk of my early childhood (something like age 2 to 8). Not sure why (money? different parental priorities later reneged upon?), but that probably was the making of me in terms of getting the bug for reading and being a precocious reader (Lord of the Rings aged 7 etc).

As for Sapphire and Steel - not sure why I missed the earlier ones, but this can partly be explained by me being a student in the early Eighties. First and second years, the only one TV in proximity was in the student common room, which I would brave only for Top of the Pops. In the third year I was in student digs and didn't own a set. So I would watch the box only in the holidays, when I was back home, and not much then either. Missed many iconic TV series of the first half of the Eighties, e.g. Boys from the Blackstuff)

I do obviously remember vividly (see previous posts) both Children of the Stones and The Changes (although the latter doesn't seem quite so central in the hauntological canon of spooky telly as Stone Tape, Owl Service, Children of Stones, Sapphire)

I do also remember this series, which never gets mentioned as part of the canon, but certainly represents a ghost of my own life....

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