To feel shocked about this on a comedy programme?

Bowdlerism! That's what is going on. Things from the past are being censored and cut to let us imagine how things are now is how all right thinking people thought and acted always. Bowdler cut Shakespeare to bits to remove the bits unsuitable for family reading, taking out, he said, those things which were unacceptable in the present and (this is the nub of what's going on) SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.
That's where we are.

You don't think in this is offensive?

I agree. He has a reputation for being a nice person, and no scandals or unpleasant stories ever told. He was funny. A statue would be good.

Crumbs, is all I can say. Okay, so its to protect them, not us. Though I think people complaining about a film made probably more than three-quarters of a century ago is daft. That said, I notice museums are suddenly hiding 17th and 18th century pictures with black servants in them - also daft. The past cannot be judged by us, their morals, ethics and mindsets were different. Without a doubt we will be in the same position in 300 years.

I don't think Benny Hill was much more than a clown. I don't find his stuff terribly offensive, is that wrong? He was a huge star in his time and I don't see why he shouldn't have a statue, there are statues of all sorts of people with controversial legacies (to put it mildly). And from what I know about him, he was quite a nice man and very respectful to the dancers and actresses on his show, if he'd been some dodgy old lech off screen that would be different.

In Southampton there has been continued debate about the idea of putting up a statue of Benny Hill who is from there.
For anyone who doesn’t know he was a hugely sexist and sometimes racist comedian of the 70s/80s.
Some still think he was a comedy icon and money has been raised and a sculptor found.
Thankfully it hasn’t come to pass as yet because enough people can see how wrong his “humour” was. It pretty much revolved around him literally chasing young girls for sex. I didn’t find it remotely funny even at the time but clearly a lot of people did.
Yes he was part of his era but I would not want to celebrate such so called comedy in 2024.
Many things are shocking when we look back. Even Bridget Jones is depressing from a feminist standpoint.

I always thought Butterflies and most Carla Laine was incredibly mawkish. However, she was definitely groundbreaking as a woman writer.

Getting together with Leonard? Apart from the fact he was physically unattractive, she would have been out of the frying pan into the fire, with him and his money.

This is such a good thread. Mumsnet at its best.

I watched an episode of The Good Life the other day (think it was on Gold) and there was an odd bit and a huge laugh after nothing really and I remembered/realised it was because a line had been cut. Tom had said to Barbara "of course I love you, you silly bitch!" I remember when it was still left in and thinking it was completely 😮

It was of its time. Not applicable in a modern scenario.

I find it fascinating -at 71 I can remember the 60s/70s -what’s amazing is how we (everyone) adapt to the society we are in and mostly accept the norms of the day.

Yes, flying and the use of individual cars will be looked on shockingly in the future I should think. And the waste -all the plastic…..

I don't much like them either @Grammarnut but I think it's in the channel's interest to issue them - someone did complain about TP showing a blackface scene in an old movie and there was a whole Ofcom investigation on the basis of it.

I loathe content warnings. As if we are all five-year-olds unable to realise that attitudes have changed. As they always have changed.
For example, young women in the seventeenth century would read the novels of Aphra Behn. One diarist describes his elderly relative (i.e a woman who was young in the late 1600s and he is writing in the 1740s) as being shocked on re-reading novels by Behn that she had enjoyed in her youth. The diarist said he was a little wary of finding copies of the books for her, even though she had requested them, though, of course, he did as she requested (matriarch, clearly).
I get the same feeling when I re-read the novels of Elizabeth Goudge, which I liked as a teenager in the mid-sixties, and now find cringingly middle-class and patronising.
I don't think I've come across the Dad's Army IRA episode. The Boer War rants remain the same afaik.

^ Yes, this. The Talking Pictures message is perfect, and it is also educational, too. There is so much to learn and reflect upon in these shows, censoring them would be simply wrong.

Did Wendy Craig sing the theme tune? It does sound like her voice.

I think it's quite odd that the BBC have let this episode be repeated without at least a CW, although I know IP said she saw it on iPlayer. But they are cagey enough about some Dad's Army episodes, there is one with an IRA storyline that they have rarely repeated, and I'm not quite sure what they do with those where Jonesy goes on one of his rants about his service in the Boer War. I don't believe things should be censored or not shown; the digital channel Talking Pictures just broadcasts an advisory message about certain films and programmes containing language which is representative of attitudes of the time and which may now be considered offensive, and I think that gets the balance about right.

Yes the music was great. I feel like rewatching it now.

When you consider this reference to rape was on screen at the same time Peter Sutcliffe was raping and murdering innocent women, it was in poor taste then and is rancid now.

^ This, exactly. There is a darkness and pathos to all of Carla Lane's work, much of it also being strongly feminist, that is easily misunderstood when looked from the present day. In the late 70s, UK society was very slowly beginning to change into the one you would recognise today, and dramas at the time reflected this.

Butterflies is a classic, we need more of this kind of TV today.

True.

A relative knew Jimmy Saville from work. Said he was creepy. Oddly, a doctor was also accused of sexual abuse at the same hospital, which makes one wonder about the overall culture there.

Probably better to save energy for the fact nothing is a whole lot better 40 years or so down the line.

I had better add rape isn't something you want any time but being dragged into the bushes at night by a stranger is pretty awful.

Maybe it was because women couldn't have flings, sex outside marriage still (although there was a pretence that women now had it all - just meant you didn't have a good excuse for saying no to sex if you were moving with the times, free love etc).
Society would disapprove - but rape meant it was out of your control.
I still remember being jolted a bit at the time and wondering what she meant as rape wasn't something you wanted as, in those days, rape meant by a stranger.

Leonard!!!! What the hell. He looked like a creepy version of my dad 😂😂😂

I remember watching thel episode when I was about 14 and i thought it was inappropriate even at my young naive age!!
On a lighter note I always wanted her to get together with Leonard 😀