Nearest and Dearest

Nearest and Dearest
Nearest and Dearest First Series (DVD)
Created by	Vince Powell Harry Driver
Starring	Hylda Baker Jimmy Jewel Madge Hindle Edward Malin Joe Gladwin
No. of series	7
No. of episodes	46
Production
Producer(s)	Granada Television
Running time	30 mins. (inc. commercials)
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	15 August 1968 – 7 February 1973
Chronology
Related shows	Not On Your Nellie

Nearest and Dearest is a British television sitcom that ran from 1968 to 1973. A total of 46 episodes were made, 18 in monochrome (black & white) and 28 in colour. The series, produced by Granada Television for the ITV network, starred Hylda Baker and Jimmy Jewel as squabbling middle-aged siblings Nellie and Eli Pledge who ran a family pickle business in Colne, Lancashire, in the North West of England.

The first episode set up the premise: in his will, Joshua Pledge bequeathed a large sum of money to his middle-aged son and daughter... but only if they stay together for five years at his small pickle business, Pledge's Purer Pickles. However, hard-working spinster Nellie and her womanising brother Eli, rarely saw eye to eye. Nellie was played by veteran comedian Hylda Baker, who was born and bred in Farnworth, eleven miles north of Manchester. Eli was played by Jimmy Jewel, a Yorkshire-born contemporary of Baker's, who had made his name as one half of the music hall (vaudeville) act Jewel and Warriss.

Also featured was the Pledges' second-cousin, Lily Tattersall, who was married to constantly-mute octaganerian Walter. Walter was unable to control his bladder, which led to one of the programme's oft-used catchphrases, "Has he been?". Lily was played by Madge Hindle, Walter by Edward Malin. Another regular character was the Pledges' toothless, cloth-capped old foreman, Stan Hardman (Joe Gladwin).

Much of the comedy was derived from Nellie's constant malapropisms. When asked by Lily if she knew the facts of life, Nellie replied with immense dignity, "Of course I do! I'm well over the age of content!" In another episode, Nellie has a suitor named Vernon Smallpiece, whom she addresses as 'Vermin Bigpiece'. When Eli insists on playing the high-powered executive once he is in charge of the pickle business, Nellie asks him who he thinks he is "sat sitting there like a big business typhoon!" In each episode, Nellie and Eli would hurl insults at each other to spectacular effect, as they fought over the family business or domestic matters, with Nellie's constant nagging and Eli's constant drinking and womanising fuelling their arguments. It was widely alleged that the insults continued offscreen as well, as Baker and Jewel apparently detested each other in real life. In later episodes, Baker struggled to remember her lines and relied on cue cards and prompting from co-star Madge Hindle. Baker would suffer greatly with dementia during her final years.

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