The following is commentary on Episode No. 10 ("One of Ours") from members of AFAMILYATWAR-LIST. If you wish to add your thoughts to what is being said on this page, become a part of our discussion group by clicking the "Join" button.
Richard Veit
In “One of Ours,” home-front members of the Ashton family feel the war’s full effects. Food rationing, price controls, and the role of the British housewife are discussed by Margaret and her mother. Freda helps to prepare the Ashton home for a blackout. The interior of an Anderson shelter is seen when Sheila, Jean, Margaret, and baby John George spend the night within its chilly confines during a Luftwaffe air raid.
I was struck anew by the lengths to which Jean goes to fabricate excuses for David’s selfish behaviour. Whenever David fails to ring his wife, Jean inevitably will protest to Sheila that surely he was too busy to do so, or he was flying, etc. Never will she admit to herself David’s irresponsible failings as a husband and father. Meanwhile, as Sheila patiently awaits the telephone’s ring, David is seen carousing away his Saturday night at the Turk’s Head, in the company of Susan Reynolds, and yet unable to find a spare moment to ring his wife.
Here are some other random thoughts…
Director Tim Jones employs a very clever and effective cut, as Jean extinguishes the light at the Ashton home, and then Susan Reynolds switches on the light in her office at the Women’s Voluntary Service Study Centre.
During Lofty’s “Waltzing Matilda” balancing act at the Turk’s Head, one of those seen in the pub crowd of is Michael de Freyne, the same actor who later will appear as Todd in “Clash at Night.”
This episode nicely explains the mystery of David’s bandaged right hand, an affliction introduced in the previous installment, “The Night They Hit No. 8.” Apologetically, David informs Susan Reynolds that he was unable to serve as navigator aboard her late husband Jack’s last flight because he had injured his “pencil hand” in a bicycle accident.
A very realistic scene between Smithy and Doug seems to spring from an insider’s knowledge of military dogma. Smithy admonishes Doug to destroy a letter he was writing that begins, “In case I don’t get back…” When Doug labels such a belief in jinxes as nothing but “muck,” Smithy insists that he and the others are not superstitious—they just don’t believe in taking chances!
David’s reluctance to venture aft in the stricken aircraft, despite direct instructions from skipper Ken Beaumont, would appear to be a clear instance of momentary cowardice. Soon thereafter, when told to check on Smithy, again David is hesitant to follow orders. This shows a human side of David Ashton that makes him seem utterly real to the viewer. Though David is the scene’s principal character, the writer (Leslie Sands) does not take the easy way out by portraying him as an instant superhero. Of course, in a much later episode (“Breaking Point”), we shall witness David’s growth as a person, valiantly coming to the aid of mortally wounded pilot Jack Ridley.
Again, as throughout the entire run of “A Family at War,” production personnel capture some gripping military sequences. Thanks, I’m sure, to invaluable assistance from the RAF, the claustrophobic airborne footage in “One of Ours” is quite stunning.
