What Howards’ Way taught me about Margaret Thatcher

Splice the mainbrace! Howards’ Way, the BBC’s Sunday night sailing and sex 80s soap, is back, courtesy of UKTV Play, with the whole first series now available to stream free with ads. Nearly 40 years on, I’ve found myself caught in its swell all over again.

The combination of corporate chicanery (Fry and Laurie’s ‘Damn you, Marjorie!’ sketches owe a lot to this) and sizzling sex on satin sheets is made all the more glorious because the backdrop isn’t the sun-drenched skyscrapers and rodeo ranches of Texas or Colorado but the village of Bursledon on the Hampshire coast, renamed Tarrant for the fiction. The sailing, and there’s a lot of sailing, all takes place on the river Hamble. Now, Bursledon is a pretty little place but its shortcomings as a glamour location are immediately obvious as episode one of Howards’ Way opens on the final stages of a thrilling yacht race taking place under grey, smeary skies.