The Owl Service

A few weeks ago for some reason I kept thinking about The Owl Service by Alan Garner, a book I’d not read since I was at primary school. I used to have a boxed set containing that, Elidor, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and so on – long since lost.

I’m not generally a fan of fantasy and perhaps I liked this one of his books best because it’s grounded in reality – in some ways it’s just a cracking good ghost story. A girl called Alison on holiday in Wales hears scratching noises in the roof. When the housekeeper’s son investigates he finds a dinner service in the loft with a pattern that looks like flowers but Alison sees that they are really owls. She starts making paper models of the owls and very odd things begin to happen.

Browsing in a bookshop I spotted a single copy – the only Alan Garner book they had. So of course I had to get it. It was as good as I remembered but paradoxically it seemed to be rather devoid of the jealousy between the three main characters that I’d remembered.

Then I discovered that it had been adapted for TV by Granada in 1969 – the first colour drama they ever made. There’s an excellent article on the making of the programme – scripted by Alan Garner himself – and all the owly coincidences that dogged (owled?) its making.

I’m pretty sure I never saw the TV series, but having watched the first two episodes on DVD I’m struck how it looks exactly like I pictured it in my head; and the jealousy is all there again. Am going to ration myself the rest over the next few days like a box of chocolates.