Catch up TV

Series 3: Episode 4

The final episode of the series sees David tracing the lives of 10 Guinea Street’s occupants through World War II to the present day, discovering stories of love, loss and renewal.\n\nIn the run-up to the war, the house is occupied by the younger generation of the Wallingtons, the long-term owners of number 10, who move back to the house after several years living in the rural Somerset. The Wallingtons are letting rooms to lodgers when war is declared in 1939 and would have sheltered in their cellar as German bombs rain down on Bristol. Over the ten months of the Bristol Blitz, the old city is devastated and 3,000 houses destroyed. Number 10 itself is almost among them, as a bomb falls directly on Guinea Street, only missing the house by a whisker. \n\nAmongst the casualties of the blast is Isaac Long, a neighbour living further down the road at 5 Guinea Street. As David discovers, Isaac and his wife Mary move into number 10 when the bombing renders their house uninhabitable. David follows the Longs’ trail into the fifties, when Isaac and Mary move out of number 10 to another house in Guinea Street.\n\nDavid then sets out to investigate the postwar tenants of number 10. Amongst them he finds a man named Cyril Tabrett, whose story proves to be something of a puzzle. The records of Cyril’s life show different dates of birth, places of birth and different combinations of first and second names. Is this a mistake of record-keeping or a deliberate attempt by Cyril to change his identity?\n\nDavid’s attention turns next to the Wallingtons, the owners of 10 Guinea Street since the late 1880s. By the 1950s, four family members still live here - siblings Cyril, Norris, Hilda and Winifred Wallington, now well into middle age. He is unable to find any children or any living relatives who can provide detailed information about them. But he does discover a former tenant of the house who remembers a Mr Wallington living in the basement.\n\nBy the late 1960s, the house is in a serious state of neglect, and it takes a series of careful owners before the house is restored to its former glory. David meets a selection of more recent residents, from a young man recovering from a serious car accident to a refugee fleeing political unrest in Ethiopia. Finally, he asks the current owners, Karen and David, to listen to the stories of some of the former occupants of Guinea Street, and to reflect on the extraordinary 300-year history of 10 Guinea Street.

Source: BBC 2