A Legacy was adapted from the fine novel by the late Sybil Bedford, a well born German woman who made her home in England. It tells the story of an aristocratic Bavarian family in the years before the First World War and the tensions they encounter in the militaristic atmosphere of an expansionist Imperial Germany.
The older son of the family, played by John Fraser, is able to lead an artistic carefree life but his younger brother, played by Christopher Guard, is consigned to a spartan military academy where he falls foul of the Prussian instructors and his brutal fellow cadets.
The great comic actress Irene Handl was featured in a serious role as the ancient grandmother of the family and acquitted herself well. The series was broadcast in the days before the domestic VCR so my critique is based purely upon memory. This is another of those BBC dramas from the golden age that now appears to be lost in the vaults and is crying out for another airing.
