The Hidden Truth: 1.6 Penny Post Paid (20th August 1964). Written by Roger East; dir. Marc Miller. Featuring regulars Alexander Knox, James Maxwell, Zia Mohyeddin, George Moon & Ruth Meyers. Guest starring David Garth, Kathleen Breck & Gary Watson.
Professor Lazard is asked by Grace Barber (Kathleen Breck) to check the authenticity of the Dockwra postmarks on some 300 year old letters belonging to her uncle, middle-aged barrister George Ayestone (David Garth). But Ayestone has forged the postmarks in order to send the value of the letters soaring, and the investigation could “shatter a daughter’s love for her father.”
[It’s not clear from the write-ups whether ‘daughter’ is an error for niece (given the highlighting of Breck’s role), or an actual daughter (Geraldine Moffatt plays another young woman listed as ‘Moddy’ so it’s possible). Lazard is “innocently involved in a case of forgery” so the issue for him could be the consequences of proving the fraud, or maybe complicity in having initially pronounced them genuine.]
Gary Watson played Thomas Bazzle, Robert Ayres Julius Shaster, Marianne Deeming was Elsa and Geraldine Moffatt ‘Moddy’ plus John Cater as Frank Dobel and Alan Dudley as the voice of a judge.
The unusual, quirky nature of the story attracted some attention in the TV pages. Roger East (aka Roger Burford), who had previously written 1.2 “The Shape,” based the story on his father’s tales “about the odd things he had done as a consultant analyst,” combined with his own interest in stamp collecting, “so the subject presented no difficulty.”
Dockwra postmarks relate to the London Penny Post launched in 1680 by William Dockwra, and are very rare and much sought after by collectors.
