The Orchid Walls (1998)

During World War II Jenny, a London teenager, is sent to spend the summer in the countryside where she will be safe. Staying with relatives she has not seen since she was a young child proves tough as the family iare harsh and seemingly unwelcoming and seem to be hiding a secret. But things get ever more complicated when an RAF soldier arrives to visit at the farm, and Jenny has a grave feeling of foreboding that something dreadful is soon to happen...

Starring Honeysuckle Weeks, Sylvia Syms, John McGlynn, Fiona Dolman, Marsha Fitzalan, Rupert Proctor, Cherith Mellor, Alexis Denisoff, James Bree and Joanna Jeffrees. This was originally broadcast on New Year's Eve 1998, which is somewhat unusual for what is a summery story. However it has a dark and unnerving undercurrent to it as young Honeysuckle Weeks's character Jenny observes things even when the rather strange family she is lumbered with during the war tries their best to keep things from her. Honeysuckle Weeks seemed to always be on TV in the 1990's and this was another of her notable appearances, while it features a pre-Heartbeat and Midsomer Murders appearance by Fiona Dolman, who becomes centre of events that unfold. This is from a recording of mine from TV and a rare edition from the Ruth Rendell Mysteries cannon.