Moondial (Faber Children's Classics)

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The moondial, for example, is the central device from which all the twists and turns of the story and furiously stoked, but do we ever find out how or why it does what it does? Like hell we do! Okay, there's a brief discussion between Minty and World about 'moontime', which attempts to broach the subject but this is sadly smothered by vague notions. And Miss Raven's appearance in the modern day is an exciting twist, but, Who is World? How does he know stuff? Is Miss Raven really the same person as from the past? Where do the kids *go*? They clearly still stayed in their lives as there's a gravestone - how were their lives improved? Were they? Glad to read this article. I remember watching this at the time and have been to Belton House twice. I brought the dvd a couple of years ago as soon as I knew it was available. I was baffled by it! I used to go in to see Paul (Stone, Executive Producer) and say, ‘What about this, who’s done that and why has this happened?’ and he eventually got fed up with me, and he said, ‘Look, why don’t you go up to Nottingham and talk to Helen (Cresswell) yourself’. So, I went up with a few sheets of A4 with all my questions on, had a nice lunch, and she obviously knew I was coming to ask her a few things and she launched into a chat about it and I came away thinking, ‘Oh I get it now!’ Almost by osmosis, I got the feel for what it was all about and I never got to ask her one of my questions!’ [1]

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A lovely little mystery with some beautiful symbolism and lovely morals about love being the most important thing. As another reviewer remarked Cresswell sometimes spends more time on the things you aren't interested in then skips over other moments you felt could have had more tension in such as the finale. Cresswell writes good characters and this was a good book which was deservedly made in to a TV series. It seems a shame that her name has fallen in to obscurity. I recognised Helen Cresswell's name as writing the screenwriter for the excellent BBC adaptation of The Demon Headmaster so was interested to find out she had written some fiction for children. The book is short, and the plot is simple, but it's a beautifully mysterious and atmospheric read, with a big dollop of nostalgia in it for me. Belton is a real house, and the Moondial of the story is a real thing in the grounds, so I think one day I'm going to have to visit and see it. A timeslip novel much akin to The Children of Green Knowe and An Enemy at Green Knowe, Moondial sees a young girl attempt to comes to grips with a sense of a place and those who inhabited it before. Her relationship with Tom and Sarah, children from other times, were engaging enough although I suspect a more fruitful exploration would have come across in the T.V. version (for which the idea was also conceived.) Led on to the sundial, upon a strangely symmetrical journey resembling that of her dream which opens this six-part serial – and accompanied by the late David Ferguson’s magnificent score – Minty discovers its powers to be that of not just ‘apparent-time’ but also that of ‘moon-time’ and the dial spins her on course to the 19th Century where she meets a fellow time-traveller, a boy called Tom ‘short for Edward’ (Tony Sands).Moondial, a children’s book written by Helen Cresswell, was jointly published in October 1987 by Faber and Faber and the National Trust. The story is set in 1985 Belton village and at Belton House. The narrative both in the novel and the adaptation doesn’t offer a clear resolution or straight-forward explanations and appears to deliberately leave us with a fair degree of ambiguity. Even director Colin Cant admits being puzzled by the scripts and having to explore their meaning further. D uring the 1970s and 1980s, children’s television drama was arguably at its height with both original and adapted material being brought to the screens during weekly tea-time on a consistent basis by both the BBC and ITV networks. Dramas where children took the centre stage and were given a platform to be equals to their adult counterparts and therefore subject to as much peril and tribulation within stories that didn’t shy away from hard-hitting subject matters and dealing with very real issues that were instantly relatable no matter how fanciful the setting. Moondial’ (1988) is available on DVD from Second Sight Films, originally released 4 May 2015. BBFC classification PG. Running time 158 mins. Catalogue no. 2NDVD3274.

Moondial (Audio Download): Helen Cresswell, Charlotte

And, again - who was Miss Raven and what truly was her objective? With just that little bit more, this book could have had full marks from me. Regardless, I did enjoy it, and will probably gladly reread it at some point. And I will read further works by this author, time and availability permitting. :) Moondial’ by Helen Cresswell was first published January 1st 1987 by Puffin Books, and originally broadcast on BBC1, 10 February – 16 March 1988. Minty (Siri Neal), is a gifted child who can sense things that many cannot (this is subtlety alluded to during the opening of episode one much like the opening paragraphs of the novel although the adaptation omits the dark notion of Minty sensing a past act of suicide on the landing in her own home and realised her ability when she could hear her father’s voice even though he is dead). Neal gives Minty a rather fearless and unconventional quality to her character along with an incredibly real vulnerability having already lost a parent and is now facing the very real threat of losing the other. Regarded as a nostalgic favourite by followers of 1980s BBC children's drama, Moondial employs extensive location filming (in the grounds of Belton House in Lincolnshire) and fantastical, dreamlike imagery.David Ferguson’s theme tune and score is wonderfully ethereal, and he would go on to become a regular collaborator of director Colin Cant, the pair later working together on The Country Boy, Dark Season and Century Falls. Ferguson, unusually for BBC children’s productions of the time, wasn’t part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and operated on a freelance basis but his work has a very similar feel to the best of the Workshop. His music sounds timeless, not suffering at all from sounding like it comes from the 1980s, and not sounding as if it was crafted on the usual synthesisers. It is one of the finest aspects of this production and deserves a wider audience. Sadly, Ferguson passed away in just his mid-50s, so listeners were denied hearing any more of his excellent, talented work. I have a vague recollection of being 7 years old, coming home from school and watching a terrfying kid's tv show in which a young girl with a birthmark on her face cannot look in a mirror for fear she'll summon the devil. I knew there was a sundial central to the story, but didn't know much else about it - and couldn't find anyone else who remembered it, until I met Alysa. The series was released on video in 1990, and reissued in 1995, but only in a shortened "movie edit". This was released on DVD in 2000, but has long since been deleted. The full episodic version was released in 2009 by Reader's Digest and later re-released on DVD by Second Sight in May 2015. Helen Cresswell is certainly one such hero. This is a novel reminiscent of Philippa Pearce's 'Tom's Midnight Garden', engaging with time slips and ghostly figures from the past and the future. More advanced moondials can include charts showing the exact calculations to get the correct time, as well as dials designed with latitude and longitude in mind.