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Sad to hear that Paul Darrow has died. Blake’s Seven loomed large in my childhood and Avon and Servalan were the stars. We’ve lost them both within the space of a few months.
I loved Blake’s Seven, though my actual memories of it are quite limited. As with many old shows it’s the opening titles and the theme music that are etched into my brain and my main memory of the show is the utter despondence I felt when an electrical storm caused us to lose TV reception, meaning I missed both the Goodies and Blake’s Seven. Did they repeat those shows for the poor souls who missed them? I don’t think so. There were no videos to purchase, no iPlayer and shows were rarely shown again. Why had God deprived me of my favourite shows?
Weird to have a main memory of something you loved being when it wasn’t there.
Avon was on Blake’s side and so one of the seven, but he was out for himself and the Darrow played his superior selfishness to perfection. I also loved Vila because he was funny and Avon was mean to him. And yet still I liked Avon. And Servalan was the baddie, but for some reason I was very much enraptured with her too.
What a complex piece of entertainment that was for an eleven year old.
It’s not a show I want to watch again, because I don’t think it can live up to what I feel that it was (and I don’t even know what happened now, it’s just a feeling inside me that Blake’s Seven was the greatest), but Avon was my first proper anti-hero and I am sad that he is gone.
Back home by lunchtime and the kids didn’t seem to have missed me. My daughter expressly told me that she had not missed me. We are in many ways a modern day Avon and Vila.
And good news if you backed the last but one RHLSTP kickstarter. A cool kids T shirt sold on eBay for £52 and the Rubik’s cube went for £41. So lay down your rewards in a ban vault and watch them accrue in value. They are very much like the modern day Lewis chessmen and if you keep them in a drawer for 50 years you’ll discover they are worth millions. Unless I accidentally say something racist and my career lies in ruins. I’ll try not to, but the problem is I do hate anyone who isn’t English, so I can’t guarantee it.
