Another one of those fantastically strange kid's drama serials from the maniacs at HTV, Children Of The Stones freaked out a generation, and is regularly referred to as 'the scariest programme ever made for children.'
It's about astrophysicist Adam Brake ( Gareth Thomas off Blake's 7 ) and his son Matthew, who journey to the village of Milbury, the site of a neolithic stone circle ( played by Avebury, a site in Wiltshire that predates Stonehenge. )
Adam is there to investigate the stones, and Matthew, being actually cleverer than his dad but not too annoying with it, has tagged along to help.
Almost immediately, something is very evidently wrong with Milbury. Everyone walks around smiling at nothing, and constantly wishing Matthew a 'Happy Day'.
There are strange pagan rituals going on at night, led by Hendrick, the Laird of the village ( the magnificently urbane and chillingly charming Iain Cuthbertson )
Adam & Matt team up with Margaret, the curator at the village museum, and her daughter Sandra, to try and figure out what's going on, they being the other new arrivals seemingly unaffected by the psychic forces at play in Milbury.
Interestingly, Hendrick recognizes Matthew as his arch-nemesis straight away, and respects him as a worthy opponent, while Adam, being an adult, is sure he already knows all there is to know, so misses every portent that comes his way.
Like a lot of kid's TV at this time, Children Of The Stones freely takes in such subjects as mythology, leylines, the Gaia principle of the Earth, pseudo-science and the fate of humanity in it's seven episodes.
It's full of atmosphere and dread, and people glancing meaningfully at each other, not daring to speak the awful truth. And then there's the opening of the show, where the stones seem to be singing to you. Or maybe warning you away.
Children Of The Stones is a bit Wicker Man, a bit Stepford Wives, and a bit like The Prisoner, what with their seemingly innocuous phrases like 'Happy Day' and 'Be Seeing You' given sinister intent, and with it's final ending where everything almost, but not quite, goes back to the beginning.
I'm guessing no kid at the time, and very few adults, understood the ending of Children Of The Stones, and the revelations given as to what it had all been about. But that's the mark of the HTV kid's serials, versus the pap children are fed these days. You actually had to think.
And it's all on youtube, so as you're not doing anything Sunday afternoon, put your feet up and watch the whole thing. But be warned. Once you enter Milbury, you might not ever leave.