It might be an idea trying to watch on catch ups where adverts are cut out but on Sky catch up where they do cut adverts on Drama's catchup programmes, the amount of episodes could be limited in the amount available. The ending is pure comedy gold. Abbey, who, from nowhere and with no business experience, manages somehow (and unexplained) to persuade the shareholders of Frere Holdings Plc, a huge, very successful public company, that Charles Frere, her father and the chairman, is not up to the task, despite decades of profits, success and expansion, Leo takes over the Mermaid Yard....he's come a long way through the series, from environmental activist, to petrol pump attendant, to selling boats, to powerboat champion, to senior manager businessman, to America Cup boat designer!! Jan's company goes public, Lynn Howard becomes pregnant by Charles Frere, despite her almost dying in an incident after a previous relationship with him, (are the Howard children mentally ill getting involved with people that nearly killed them?!) and Ken Masters takes over just about everything without a mention of how he's managed to extract millions to fund these ventures! The Howard’s were blessed with two offspring: languid, goldfish-like Leo (Edward Highmore) and the huge-hulled Lynne (Tracey Childs), a spoilt brat who, after sailing solo across the Atlantic, married pigtailed Frenchman Claude du Pont (Malcolm Jamieson). Look out for some wonderful guest stars and guest characters: Catherine Schell, Pamela Salem, Michael Cochrane, a young Anthony Head, boo-hiss Francesca Gonshaw, a gozzy-eyed animal rights baddie, Stephen Grief as his standard-issue "oily foreigner" character. So much of Howards Way is familiar, it fits like a glove.

Southampton Town Hall became a Swiss bank, Rhode Island was recreated at Warsash on the River Hamble, and Claude and Lynne’s romance on the QE2 was filmed partly on the Isle of Wight ferry and partly on a decidedly unglamorous dredger in the Solent. Sunday night ..winter , this was brilliant viewing...classic 1980s drama ...a story of redundancy...starting over again...social position , changing times ...almost Jane Austin Central to the plot were three yachts - The Flying Fish, a Laser 28; Barracuda of Tarrant, the prototype of the Sadler Barracuda 45, and Spring of Tarrant, the prototype of the MG Spring 25. Both the Barracuda and Spring were designed by Tony Castro. As well as many on-screen romances, Jan Harvey and Stephen Yardley became more than just good friends, as did Tracey Childs and Tony Anholt who played super-smooth tycoon Charles Frere.

I am at present collecting the complete series of Howards Way, as i just love the drama of it all so much, i have just bought series three. I've never seen Howards Way, have tried to get round to it a few times but like Bergerac and Lovejoy, never got round to it. It's the characters with integrity that stand out. The only working class person allowed dialogue is Bill From The Mermaid Yard, who steals every scene he is in just by not having to talk about share prices. Gerald Urquhart's old school tie hoves into view every now and then; he is utterly competent, likable and honest. The fact that he is gay is conveniently forgotten after some quite strong and dramatic scenes in which AIDS is skirted around and then finally mentioned, and he cops off with Kate O'Mara. When I watched this series in the 1980's, I could never make out if Howard's Way was meant to be a comedy, a soap or trying to be a serious drama. After watching the whole series recently on UK drama, I've definitely come to the conclusion that it's a comedy. Ken masters clothes set the tone with some extraordinary combinations and the way he wore them, sleeves rolled up! All he needed to complete the look was a red nose and he'd be the perfect clown. The designs of Jan Howard's fashion house were pretty awful too, but she still manages to expand at an incredible rate, opening shops, factories and boutiques everywhere, ending up taking her company public. Some of the cast would fit perfectly into a sailing club sit-com.

Totally implausible plots, big shoulder pads, badly acted, intrusive syrupy incidental music and characters with no redeeming features whatsoever (aside possibly from Avril Rolfe, played by Susan Gilmore). It made for unmissable TV. I don't think it was meant to be a comedy, but it certainly made me laugh. The setting for Howards’ Way was the fictional town of Tarrant – in reality, the yachting community of Bursledon on the River Hamble in Hampshire. Also, keep an eye open for wooden Kate Harvey. At the very end of the series, she's seen shuffling some papers and explains she is planning her campaign to be elected to the local council. An episode later, someone asks if she'll be late for her committee meeting. Utterly preposterous.

See also

Other major characters introduced during the first series are Kate Harvey ( Dulcie Gray), Jan's sensible and supportive mother, the millionaire businessman Charles Frere ( Tony Anholt) and the wealthy but unhappy Urquhart family. Gerald ( Ivor Danvers) is the right-hand man of Charles Frere. Polly ( Patricia Shakesby), a friend of Jan, is a bored corporate wife preoccupied with preserving her social status, and their daughter Abby ( Cindy Shelley) is a socially awkward young woman who has returned to Tarrant after completing her education at a Swiss finishing school and who establishes a friendship with Leo Howard. Unlike the comparatively close and secure Howard family, the Urquharts have secrets to hide. Gerald and Polly's marriage is a sham—an arrangement to cover the fact that Gerald is bisexual, to give him respectability in the business world and give a name to Abby, Polly's illegitimate daughter after an affair at university. Abby herself is pregnant, after a brief relationship in Switzerland. Utterly ludicrous in every way, Howards Way feels like it has been beamed in from another planet, not from twenty years in the past. It's always held up as the ultimate example of British aspiration in the 80s: powerdressing, shoulderpads, big hair, big cars, mobile phones, powerboats, money money money. The world seen in Howards Way is completely unlike anything of my experience that it seems alien. All interiors were filmed in Studio A at the now-demolished BBC Pebble Mill studios in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Extensive two-storey sets were constructed inside the studio (the Howards and the Urquhart homes were both functioning two-floor sets). The smaller Studio B (used for regional news) was also occasionally used as an on-screen fashion photography studio. Other areas of the large 1970s TV and radio complex (opened in 1971) were used for the many board room scenes in the series, with long corridors and lifts sometimes doubling as a busy hospital and meeting rooms became lavish corporate hospitality suites. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.