White House Farm - The Bamber Murders. Jan 8th ITV 9pm

[Dogleg]

Is anyone else planning to watch this six part series? I vaguely remembered the killings and on seeing this advertised have now lost hours to reading up about it online and have also downloaded a book about the case. I’m really looking forward to this one!

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-12-25/itv-drama-white-house-farm/

Ann isn’t coming across well in the series tbh. It’s based upon the books by Colin Caffell and Carol Ann ...someone.

Extensive info in both and Colin is quite open about the issues within the family. More about June and Nevill and the relationship June had with Sheila.

Don’t know what to think about Ann Eaton based upon this.

I still think the right person is in prison though.

Anne Eaton did help herself, did she? She had a huge sense of entitlement to the Bamber parents and their stuff.

Yes she helped herself. I wonder just how close she was to ‘Auntie June’. According to the programme she was demanding ‘Auntie June’s’ wedding ring within days of the deaths. Her entitlement was huge considering she was only a niece.

I saw an interview with the other cousin, Anne’s brother, and he didn’t come across well. A little bit off.

IMO David Boutfleur is quite strange. His inappropriate laughter in interviews is very worrying.

Quick off the mark, that one. Especially as you'd never expect to inherit from a woman who had a daughter.

Tbh I thought David Boutflour came across as a typical upper class man in the interviews. Very ex public school ...FIL is very similar, lovely, affable but can seem stilted with laughter at odd times.

Who was the girl who turned up this episode and then was not mentioned?

Both Jeremy and Sheila very messed up by their adoptive family. Both went off to boarding schools at a young age, Obviously in the eyes of June and Nevill they there giving them the best education but it seems to have been an issue for them both.

Plus June had terrible MH issues as well which messed with the heads of both Sheila and Jeremy.

They do come across as a rather weird family. However, I do feel the police eventually caught the right guy.

I do think JB should get time off his sentence for having such foul relations

Ann comes across as rather entitled but I can relate to her, to some degree. I come from a farming family and have married into a farming family.

There is usually some degree of resentment over how things will go because in order to keep a farming business moving through the generations it can't be split up, so one sibling/cousin always does well at the detriment of others.

I'm very sentimental and I like to keep things safe. We moved into my DHs grandfathers house which is not at all dissimilar to WFH. I felt sad for DH that prior to us moving in, there was some mad scrabble for anything of value and we moved into something which had been effectively ransacked. My brother is my polar opposite in that he will sell his granny for a quick quid. We get on very well but I could see in a situation like that me wanting to safekeep family items so that he couldn't sell them to the highest bidder without us discussing their value to us as a family.

If Jeremy is depicted accurately in this episode, it's a very odd way to conduct yourself when you're trying to get away with murder. The partying and having friends to roam around his parents house seems so far fetched.

I love Stephen Graham, I do. But his accent is diabolical. I can't take him seriously.

This is how I felt about Olivia Colman in Broadchurch.

but maybe some people can do this on cue?

I can vomit on cue. It’s not normally a useful life skill, though.

This does give some understanding about why Bamber keeps trying to appeal. The police investigation was such a mess that it enables him to keep coming up with stuff that appears superficially to cast doubt or support his innocence until you look further - and until you come up against the solid facts which show pretty clearly that the original guilty verdict was absolutely correct.

If any fellow Scots we're wondering who plays the young DC who works alongside the sceptical DS, it's methadone mick from Still Game.

Any idea who the actor who plays DI Bob Miller is? The credits were too small and too fast.

Mark Addy.

The Stephen Graham officer is appalling- how he didn’t question everyone is beyond me. Even when alerted to the fact that something looked odd.

Mark Addy is great in this.

I lay awake trying to think where I’d seen him before - cackling Methodone Mick from Still Game. Thank you!

I liked that they got Alfie Allen in for what I assume is only a cameo role - given his "sister" is in one of the main roles

And with King Robert - quite the reunion

I forgot he was Robert!!

I thought Boutflour came across well in his interviews with the BBC. As for Ann, she isn't likeable but I found it understandable that she would need to organise everything and to try to protect the family 'heirlooms'.

Did Jeremy struggle to go into Sheila's room or was that fabricated by the TV programme?

Surely Ann was stealing when she removed items of value from the farmhouse? It's not her home, she wasn't a beneficiary or executor, they weren't her parents and the stuff she removed wasn't her property.

I wouldn't think it would be stealing necessarily - not if she told the executors she had it and was ready to hand it over as soon as it was clear who it belonged to.
I am sure she was right that the place was an enormous burglary risk - not just local criminals but anyone who could read a tabloid would know the place was empty and had valuables.

I can't believe anyone would want to set foot in that house ever again. I think I'd have it demolished.

It's a listed building so that wouldn't be allowed even if the owners wanted to.

I don't know how I would actually react in that situation but I can certainly see some people might feel that the memories of many years of people living happily somewhere shouldn't be erased because of what happened on one night.