Themes
The series is considered to be a fairly accurate representation of life in the British Army during the 1970s, when the army had the task of trying to keep the peace in Northern Ireland and maintained garrisons in Germany and Hong Kong. It shows the inflexible class divisions in the Army of the time. The 'glass ceiling' for even the most able soldiers of working-class origin, like Colour Sergeant Jackson, is shown to be a barrier to achieving advancement from non-commissioned to commissioned officer. Early episodes of the series show the Army in an unfavourable light; two episodes deal with a petty thief who has a gambling habit, and another deals with an enlisted man going AWOL, and Jackson gets him back. Particularly controversial is an episode set in Northern Ireland, where some soldiers are portrayed as advocating a less aggressive campaign against all hostile civilians (including women and children). In addition to dodging bullets and road side explosives thanks to Britain's poor industrial relations at the time some of the other tasks assigned to the army were fire fighting with 1950s equipment and standing in for striking dustmen.
Through the run of the series, the Royal Wessex Rangers were posted to a number of locations, including to Northern Ireland, to West Germany with British Army of the Rhine, and as the resident battalion in Hong Kong.
Read more about this topic: Spearhead (TV Series)
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)