Ann Way Season: Dr Finlay's Casebook - The Phantom Piper of Tannochbrae
Having commented in the introduction that I wouldn't be able to see it, I'm delighted to have laid my hands on the boxed set of series 3 and 4 of Dr Finlay's Casebook, which includes this episode. I have somehow managed never to have seen this series, but am very pleased to have discovered it because I'm loving it.
Dr Finlay's Casebook is one of those legendary shows from a past age of British television. It was broadcast from 1962 to 71, and is centred on a medical practice in the fictional village of Tannochbrae in Scotland. The summary of this episode fascinated me, because while driving down the road Dr Cameron comes across a solitary piper who thinks that he is leading a whole batallion, which is unseeen. I had to see it, and am very glad that I now have.
I have only seen a few episodes so far, but far from the medical drama I was expecting, I am hugely impressed with the sheer quality of plot of this drama. Assuming the ones I have seen so far are representative, it doesn't shy away from dealing with some absolutely huge issues, which take it well out of the league of a sitcom. For example, in one episode I have seen, the subject is a woman who gives birth to a baby who (in an age before scans) turns out when born to have spina bifida, and her reaction to this news. It may have come as a surprise to some viewers that she initially refused to so much as look at her baby, and I am hugely impressed that a TV programme would tackle the difficult situation and all the emotions and reactions involved. The doctors in that episode provide something of their own commentary on the reaction and the events. I can only say that I am hugely impressed with this programme and wish I'd seen it before.
The momentous subject matter of The Phantom Piper of Tannochbrae is war: the ongoing damage of war, the reactions of people to being expected to fight, conscientious objection and reaction to the conflict afterwards. There is a subplot where the Laird and the schoolmaster are at loggerheads over whether a war memorial should be erected in the village (surely by this time there wasn't a town, city or village in the UK which didn't have a war memorial from the First World Ward to which the dead from the second were just added, in smaller places?).
It turns out that the reason the piper is behaving so strangely and believes he is being followed around by a whole batallion, is that he has a head injury from World War 2, and has not long been discharged from hospital to go home to live in poverty with his sister who is a spinster. It is evident that they are patriotic from the Union Jack in the shack they live in. Ann Way's role is to play his sister, and we meet her in a brief scene where he is unwell and she puts on a shawl to go out and ring the doctor, on a windy night. She comes across as clearly having a heart of gold and isn't bitter or upset by the arrangement, and of course is quite happy to look after her brother to the best of her ability, simply because he is her brother. The situation is clearly not sustainable, however, and much of the rest of the episode is Dr Cameron finding a way to get the piper looked after properly.
One strange thing about the episode is that the piper is never given a name, but is only ever referred to as 'the piper', even in the credits. Ann Way is credited as The Piper's Sister, although she is addressed as Miss Nixie as one point. I have not been able to come up with a reason for this, or even decide whether I think it is deliberate, but it is frankly rather peculiar. I want to say that it could be that he is intended to represent an impersonal body of all of those killed or maimed by war, but I think that this interpretation may be more symbolic than the series can bear. The effect it does have, though, is to suggest that the piper is a bother, that nobody can be bothered to get to know him, and that while the discussion is going on about a war memorial, the actual war injured in the village aren't really of any importance.
If you want a criticism I think I would have to say that I think the subjects this show takes on are rather ambitious. For example in this one, there are matters of war, memorials, the duty of the state to the injured, trauma, care in the community, and so on...quite a lot for a one hour drama!
Otherwise, an excellent drama, in which Ann Way takes a very small part.
Finally I know that you will love the scene in which the piper first talks about the batallion!
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