Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #766 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-10-26
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Synopsis
Tom Oakley is the widowed, cantankerous villager whose life changes when a nine-year-old is evacuated from London and billeted on him. A strong bond of friendship develops between them but suddenly Willie is summoned back to blitz-torn London by his mother...

Customer Reviews

It Does The Book Justice
This film truley is amazing, i love how Tom starts out seemingly old and grumpy but this young boy turns him in to a big softie really :P . I also feel for Willam when he turns up at Toms doorstep you really see the fear in his eyes of being left with and old scary man whos like a giant, its shows how so many evacuated children must have when they were really just left in the middle of nowhere with strangers, you see Willam and Tom blossom John Thaw is at his best and really makes the character shine through also the young actor who plays william does an amazing job watch this film its amazing ( also willams mother is Monica out of Shameless :))

THE best story in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!
William Beech is evacuated to a small village called Little Weirwold during the Second World War. He is placed with Tom Oakley, a widower who has kept himself to himself for the last 40 years since his wife and child died. Both do each other more good than they can begin to imagine. But their happiness is shattered when Tom recieves a letter from Williams mother, who wishes her son to return to London immediately....

This production was first shown on TV in 1998, and since then it has been repeated numerous times (particularly on ITV3).

I first read the book when I was only 10, and absolutely LOVED it. So when I heard that it had been dramatised, I had to watch it. I was not disappointed. Every thing about it is fantastic. John Thaw and Nick Robinson play Tom and William brilliantly.

The only criticism I can give it is that it was too short; a lot of the story had to be cut out and that meant that there wasn't as much of my favourite character (Zach) as there could have been.

amazing - fact.
i always remember this film. I first watched it on an awful quality VHS at my grandma's eight years ago, and so jumped at the chance of owning it on lovely DVD format!! All the feelings of how much i loved it came back the second i put it in the drive and i sat, mesmorised at 3 in the morning, remembering how it had made me feel all those years ago. A really emotional and powerful trip down memory lane, and a lovely performance by John Thaw, playing the stern but gently loveable Mr Tom. A treat for anyone who has or had a grandparent that was evacuated in the war.