The Children of Delight

A group of hippies calling themselves the Children of Delight has fetched up on Superintendent Eden's patch, and the question the episode keeps asking is how much of the flower-power is a front. They look harmless enough. But that is exactly what Eden does not trust. Det. Sgt. Helen Webb and her colleague Det. Sgt. Sarah Gifford go undercover to find out what sits behind the facade. The name alone would be enough to make Eden reach for a file.

Undercover work means the two women have to live the life, and the episode gets mileage out of watching police officers try to look at ease in a commune that may or may not be hiding something worse than poor hygiene. Around them move Mrs. Bishop, Duncan Ross, the Coles and a man called Comber, a small community that has sprouted in the middle of a London borough without asking anyone's permission. Nobody in the group is in a hurry to explain themselves, which is precisely the problem. The two sergeants get closer to the truth by pretending to be part of the scenery. Under the beads and the peace talk, somebody is taking notes of their own.

Adele Rose wrote it, Peter Duguid directed. Wensley Pithey is Det. Supt. Eden, Derren Nesbitt Det. Chief Insp. Jordan, Jennifer Wilson Det. Sgt. Helen Webb, Sheila Fearn Det. Sgt. Sarah Gifford and Morris Perry Charles Moxon. Georgine Anderson plays Mrs. Bishop, Howard Goorney Duncan Ross, Wilfred Downing Jimmy Cole, Anna Turner Mrs. Cole and John Abineri Comber.

'The Children of Delight' aired in November 1969, and it is very much of its moment: the straight world eyeing the counter-culture and trying to work out whether it is a threat or just untidy. The answer matters less than the watching, and the watching is done very well. It is a quiet, watchful hour of television.