To really miss those early Sunday evening children's BBC serials we used to watch.

[Retropear]

Such as The Phoenix and the Carpet etc.

We'd all watch them together with toast round the fire.

Wonder why they don't do them now.

I was just thinking about The Box of Delights today, I would love DS to see it. It makes me feel really Christmassy.

The Box of Delights music was so wonderful, with The First Nowell and the other bit happening together.

I used to love the Dickens adaptations. Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Great Expectations.... Back when an episode could be 30 minutes.

Anyone remember Kizzy? The swish of the curtain?

I loved the Children of Green Knowe serial.

And Worzel Gummidge on the weekends, A Team, Knight Rider, Rolf Harris's Cartoon Time!

Didnt the BBC do Just William a couple of years ago? But otherwise, I do agree. Those Sunday night programmes were great.

Turnip, I loved all the Dickenses (got Dombey and Son on DVD earlier this year), but my favourite was Barchester Chronicles featuring a young Alan Rickman as the appalling Obadiah Slope.

That Box of Delights music was the Capriol Suite by Peter Warlock if you ever want to look it up.

Anyone remember a series from the 80s about a boy whose parents die and he finds out he was adopted and wants to find his birth parents. Opening credits had a car crashing though the Austro-Hungarian border?
I agree OP though there is a lack of well made family dramas these days that all the family can sit down to.

Ooh WearingPurple, thanks for tip re Box of Delights music!

I remember my mum watching Antiques roadshow on Sunday evenings!

swish of the curtain was the absolute bollocks. I still read the book!

Muppet, when I was little I loved moon dial and wanted to swish round that big old house in a big rustly dress. A good few years later I am a historical re enactor and a few years back I got to do an event at Belton. The kitchen that was put there for the filming is still in place and I walked round the garden in my dress! It was exactly like I thought it would be even though I'm over 30. I have a pic of DS1 and his friend on the moon dial as well, they're dressed up like little Toms, I love it.

I bought the box of delights on DVD a few years ago, watch it on the run up to Christmas. DS1 is a bit meh now but it's still special to me.

Shiny - I'm so glad someone else said 'Children of Green Knowe'. Loved that one!

I have all four of the Narnia adaptations - fantastic (even if the effects are absolute pants - I give you, The Beavers!)

And DD watched Box of Delights last Christmas for the first time. Although the DVD is all in one part, rather than the six parts like on the tv. We watched it in two parts.

Me and my Mum still refer to small, light aircraft as 'scrobblers' based on that

And I read the book (just in my head!) every year running up to Christmas - still have the same copy I bought when I was 11, off the back of the tv adaptation.

Moondial was brilliant too - still have my book of that.

I wish the BBC would do The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Susan Cooper's fantastic 'Dark is Rising' sequence (in order, please - and don't talk to me about the shitter than shit film) and 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' (even though the film of that is pretty good. All British classics that would make wonderful Sunday evening serials for the whole family.

Loved Pollyanna, anyone remember that?

Ballet Shoes, c 1977? And Come Back Lucy - very creepy story about child who saw an evil Victorian girl in the mirror (I think?)? LOVED that.

I ADORED the Children of Green Knowe. I managed to get a really crappy copy (someone had clearly just filmed the VHS) and dyou know what? It was still magical. Very Christmassy.

I seem to remember loving the Box of Delights and then being utterly let down by the rubbish ending.

The theme tunes to Song of Praise and Last of The Summer Wine still give me that Sunday-Ah-Crap-Back-to-School tummy flippy feeling. And I'm a teacher.

I showed my class a bit of the TV Narnia and my god, it has dated. Films still very good though.

Yonderland is our new Sunday tea time viewing.

Oh thank god you're all here! I need help!

Which was the serial that involved a boy, possibly from a travelling circus, and he had a tattoo/birthmark on his shoulder which they realised meant he was related to a very rich family (I think)?

These are the only details I can remember, and that it was the BBC on a Sunday evening, and Google has been futile. I absolutely adored it, I guess it would have been mid to late 90s, possibly early 00s.

I will love you forever and a day if you can tell me

DGD favorite was Pollyanna, she went about being Glad for weeks after :)

Boaty - Barriers, 1980, with the dishy Benedict Taylor.

Boaty, it was called barriers, only remember as had huge crush on Benedict Taylor

'…in my box of such delights!'

Best ever.

Am I right in remembering a TV adaptation of the Railway Children?

God, how fucking amazing was Patrick Troughton? Doctor Who and Cole Hawlings? I remember my Mum pointing out that it was one of the early Doctor's when we first watched it and I was just awestruck.