Russell T Davies: Nolly - with Helena Bonham Carter - Will We Be Watching?

Our favourite photo of Noele Gordon, giving an autograph to a young fan.

An email from 'Vera Downend':

Will you be watching the forthcoming TV drama 'Nolly', about Noele Gordon?

No. We've read the blurb, and it sounds like one of those dreadful Feminist 'Aren't Men Pigs?' type things, which makes excuses for Nolly's personality on the grounds that men are sexist towards women. It's rubbish. It's a misandrist narrative. We can't help thinking Nolly would be forthright in her views. Dramas built around ideologies are not, to our mind, enjoyable. 

Writer Russell T Davies has form - some of the worst purveyors of this type of bilge are chivalrous men. It's patronising to women and typical of the male desire to chuck its own sex under the bus and damsel women. Read this:

As well as delving into the past to find out why Noele Gordon was sacked from Crossroads without warning, this new ITV drama is also a bold exploration of how the establishment turns on women who refuse to play by the rules, the women it cannot understand and the women it fears.

Nonsense. That's rubbish - PEOPLE who don't play by the rules, are not understood and feared are usually eventually ousted, and women have always been part of the establishment. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Everything nowadays is reworked into sexism against women. Nolly was no damsel, she was a huge personality, as flawed as anybody else and brilliant, and her dismissal had nothing to do with her sex.

Every time a retro drama - 'based on facts' - is produced, we are not viewing the facts. We are viewing past events as seen through the lens of today. The 21st Century lens is as fogged and clogged with modern debris as any other.

In fact, chivalry has long encouraged a fawning 'innocent, lovely woman put down by awful men' mindset.

Women as 'done to' never 'doers'. Objects.

Noele Gordon simply got out there and did things. She lived life her way. 

If the Feminist mindset is so sheep-like its adherents imagine somebody had to leave the apparently quivering, spineless female flock to work in television before any other woman would  - and that men and women are  separate species, with men determined to 'oppress' women - they are sadly deluded.

It's a terrible view of the history of the human race, casting one sex as hideous tyrants and the other as jelly-spined nincompoops.

The whole thing reeks of Marxist style historical revisionism, victimhood culture, and narcissism.

Women as lovely, sensitive beings, men as not.

The fact that so many men go along with it, don't question - and never have - shows the truth of the situation.

We must also mention the 'glass cellar jobs' - well over 90% of workplace deaths are still male because they are still the vast majority doing those jobs. Come on, Feminists, surely representation should be more equal after all these years?

Russell has described his screenplay as a 'love letter to Noele Gordon'. Meg was not our favourite Crossroads character, although she was definitely one of them, and we adored Noele Gordon. 

But we prefer facts.

Trying to hijack Nolly's story for the purposes of the increasingly questioned Feminist ideology in all its misandrist "glory" is a terrible thing to do.

Celebrate Nolly, not nonsense.

Our Crossroads Favourites: Sandy Richardson

Sandy enjoys a cuppa in the sitting room.

Sandy Richardson, son of Meg, brother of Jill, is my wife's favourite Crossroads character of all time, and he ranks very highly with me. 

Roger Tonge played Sandy, and made him one of the gentlest, most stoic and kind-hearted characters ever. 

Sandy also had a lovely dry sense of humour.

He was very special indeed, whether annoying Carlos the chef, bantering with the waitresses or battling grave misfortune, Sandy was super.

When the show started in 1964, he was a schoolboy, then went on to try his hand at a career in journalism. 

He left for a time. 

On returning, Sandy gave farming a go, until his life suddenly changed, forever.

A car crash made him English soaps' first paraplegic.

Crossroads served the character and the realities of the physical condition most excellently.

Sandy went into a period of depression, and, after coming through that, landed a job as assistant manager at the motel.

He was concerned that nepotism might have won him the job, but Meg made sure he achieved it on his own merits.

Meanwhile, off-screen, the Crossroads Care Attendant Scheme came into existence.

I have so many fond memories of Sandy - who was as happy nattering with waitress Jane Smith as he was hobnobbing with Hugh Mortimer. Well, actually, he wasn't terribly convinced that Hugh was a suitable suitor for Meg. 

He had his doubts about our Mr M.

But never mind.

And, of course, he worried about his sister, Jill.

His relationship with Meg could be great fun - with Meg insisting that he shouldn't do too much, lest he make himself ill, and Sandy resisting.

He'd certainly inherited his mother's determination!

Romance was ill starred for Sandy.

I hoped he would marry receptionist Fay Mansfield - feeling that the character was a lovely onscreen presence and would be good for him.

But it was not to be.

There was something of a list of failed romances for Sandy, but he endured his traumas quietly.

Roger Tonge died in 1981 and we heard of Sandy's death months later, which was the Crossroads method of dealing with the deaths of major cast members at the time.

Noele Gordon, as Meg, paid tribute to the character's 'optimism and love of life'.

Sandy was wonderful, and so much more than just a peg for a fascinating storyline about paraplegia, although the character served as an inspiration for many others in the same situation.

Sandy, like many others in the longterm cast, became a dear friend who visited us three or four nights a week via our TV screens, year after year. 

We loved him.