Look and Read - Joe and The Sheep Rustlers (1973)

Set in the fictional town of Ten Bridges in the North of England, the story follows Joe, a shepherd boy working at Castle Farm, owned by Mrs Sharp and her daughter Jill. The farm is plagued by mysterious sheep disappearances, and tensions rise as suspicions swirl... Starring Struan Rodger, Martine Howard, Ken Jones, Paul Humpoletz, Mike Grady, Rita Howard and David Sadgrove. Having recently been requested a Look and Read story and having two stories of my own from the series, I decided to upload what ones there were available for this channel for people to enjoy. The earliest I could find was Joe and the Sheep Rustlers, first broadcast on January 23rd 1973 and is notable for being the first colour instalment of the series. It was originally a 10 part series, but this is the feature length version (ie, the educational bits cut out and the story parts just merged together). I'd not seen this one before and it makes for a surprisingly gritty tale for a kids show. It's also an early role for Struan Rodger, who will be familiar to viewers even if they can't always place where they've seen him (for me it's an episode of Poirot in 1990, where he was an amusing con man). There are also familiar faces in Ken Jones (Horrible Ives from Porridge) and Mike Grady (Barry in Last of the Summer Wine). But there is also a tragic footnote regarding David Sadgrove, who plays Mike Burns in this, who died at the tragically young age of 33 in a road accident on his bicycle in 1981.