Monday, August 25, 2025

Forever Green: Gentle environmental drama from 1989

I remember Forever Green as gentle Sunday evening viewing. It starred the popular John Alderton and Pauline Collins, first seen in Upstairs Downstairs, as a couple who move to the country and come across all sorts of matters of environmental concern.

The first series dates from 1989, which was a year of advance for Green politics in Britain. In the European Parliament elections, the Greens finished third, polling more than double the vote achieved by the Social & Liberal Democrats, as we then were. Maybe there was something in the air that year.

I've watched only a couple of episodes - this is number 6 from series 1, so I didn't get this far - but one thing that has surprised me slightly is the show's sympathy for alternative medicine. Imagine what the quote-tweet guys would do with that on Bluesky.

The year 1989 wasn't the start of green politics in Britain: I would date that to 1971 and the founding of Friends of the Earth, which had a talent of media-friendly stunts in its early days.

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