I'd just like to run through a few points about Thicker Than Water. The series was shown in Britain in February and March 1969, at 7.30 p.m. on Monday evenings. As far as I know it was never repeated. The master tape was wiped by the BBC in the 1970s and, as I said myself in November, no copies are known to exist. It will not therefore be coming out on DVD in the near future.
To say the least, Sir John's detailed account of the spanking scene reveals a very, very good memory indeed, in more ways than one.
When Spankmanuk first drew the series to our attention, he told us that Jimmy Jewel's character was always threatening his daughter, and that after some time he made good his threats, put her across his knee and spanked her with a hairbrush.
Sir John tells us, in very enjoyable detail, that the spanking scene happens right at the start of the second episode of the series, that Roberta Rex lies across his knee herself for other purposes (rather than being put there for a spanking), and that Jewel seizes the opportunity to spank her with his hand.
I hope I summarize both accounts accurately. It seems to me that they don't match up perfectly, and that (unless there were two spanking scenes, which seems unlikely) either Sir John or Spankmanuk must be mistaken. I don't know which of them is mistaken, just that it must be one or the other. When I have the time and can spare the cash for the search fee, I could get the script out and check. For the time being I'm just going to have to think forensically.
Forgive me, Sir John. Please understand that, when it's so easy for someone to go on the internet and (in effect) write fiction, honest witnesses sometimes get suspected unjustly. I do in fact have some evidence which seems to support your account in general terms. (I hope everyone will understand why I'm going to keep it to myself for the time being.) But there are other things which don't quite seem to ring true.
One of the things that makes me uncertain is the deliberateness with which Jewel's character seems to be acting in your account of the scene. We know that in those glorious days of the micro-mini-skirt there were many instances where girls accidentally (or 'accidentally') showed their panties on television, and we know that one of these was in the context of a spanking scene in Please Sir. But it's a very different thing for Roberta Rex to have her skirt lifted by Jimmy Jewel with the obvious sole intention of showing her panties. You say that Jewel then actually touched her knickers and apparently started to pull them down, exposing an inch or so of bare bottom. That is getting very risqué indeed, on a programme that was shown, as I said, at 7.30 in the evening. What's more, it was made at a time in the BBC's history when pressure from the top was making its programming less daring than it had been a few years earlier: one of the first things Lord Hill did when he became Chairman of the BBC in 1967 was, famously, to order the removal of a reference to knickers from the Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour. Crass, stupid and puritanical he may have been, but he was also in charge. Would the scene as you describe it have been made for 'family viewing time' eighteen months later, with Hill still at the top? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is a legitimate cause for doubt.
My other cause for doubt is relatively straightforward. You give a very vivid account of the scene, in the present tense, right down to details of how the studio audience was reacting. This is a programme which, to the best of my knowledge, has been unavailable for anyone to view since the 1970s. I assume that you saw it 33 years ago when it was shown in 1969. I further assume that you saw it just once, on its sole British showing. Obviously you were concentrating on the spanking: everyone on this site would be. But the studio audience?
Please, Sir John, take my scepticism in the spirit intended. I would dearly love for my doubts to be proven wrong, and for you to establish your bona fides. If by some miracle you own a copy of the episode, please return it to the BBC archives (having first made it available on the internet for all to enjoy): you will get your property back, and they will be able to restore it, preserve it, maybe even repeat it or release it commercially! (Unlikely, but you never know.) But if you are indeed basing your account on a 33-year-old memory, could you please give us some more information that may corroborate it? Can you, for example, remember what the story of that episode was about? Or indeed what any of the other episodes' stories were?
Also, Spankmanuk, can you shed any light on the discrepancy between your memory of the spanking scene and Sir John's?
To sum up, I have no reason to doubt Spankmanuk's account. I have some cause to believe Sir John's (which I haven't gone into) and some reasons to doubt it (which I have specified). I want to believe it and I don't want to cause offence. I know that it can be irritating when genuine information, offered in a spirit of helpful collaboration, seems to be questioned by someone who doesn't actually know one way or the other. But I also want to be sure, and if possible I don't want to have to shell out to check the script for myself!