Ethel and Ernest

Just got round to watching this, it was wonderful. It was so beautifully presented and the animation so brilliant nothing would have dragged me away! So refreshing.

I did enjoy it, Ana, very much! He really did a good job of building up to some of the punch lines this year. I feel I'm back to my usual sunny self now

Oh you'll enjoy that, Maggiemaybe! (and he wasn't as rabidly left-wing as he usually is...)

And I'm usually a glass half full person, or preferably, full to the brim . I think I need a quick shot of my recorded Charlie Brooker's 2016 round up to bring me round.

I thought it was beautifully made and a wonderful tribute to RB's parents. Most of it was very uplifting and a joy to watch. But it left me feeling very down. The ending was just so sad - mum dying with everyone staring at the TV facing away from her at the bottom of the bed, then lying in the morgue with "the Vim by her head", dad trying to make the best of his solitary life afterwards, Raymond and his silent schizophrenic wife (who died a few months later) standing sadly by the tree. I suppose it's the memento mori that's got to me!

My OH was touched by it (and he is not sentimental) as it so mirrored his own life and that of his parents - working class, one son of late marriage (for the time) who gets to grammar school and becomes successful. Very moving and a joy to watch an adult cartoon.

I entirely agree with all previous comments. What a wonderful tribute to his parents and such a slice of immediately recognisable social history. Its good to think that it was financed and made. Maybe somewhere there are enlightened people in the world of commissioning who know that not everyone wants to see whiz bang cartoons set in a dystopian future!!

I loved this, it was sad and funny and nostalgic. There was one bit though that I thought was odd. The neighbour (male) who complained that his wife was too demanding because she was "on the change". Then he asked if Ernest wanted to help him out! It seemed unrelated somehow, and just odd.

What a wonderful programme, easily the best viewing over Christmas. A beautiful lasting memory of his parents, reminded me of stories I have heard of my grandparents. Was life so much more uncomplicated then, apart from the wars of course.

Loved it! The bits about Raymond's hair were so funny, his mum crying the first time it was cut, and then telling him as he got older that it needed cutting and always offering him a comb, until he got a 'proper haircut' when he was called up. Funny and moving.

Oh gosh
I have just finished watching this on iPlayer, how truly touching without being mawkish.
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Nice touch when Raymond the child was evacuated and we see him drawing a snowman
Lovely film [tchsad

Didn't see it, so will watch it on catch up tv.My Grandparents had a shelter in their back garden, not sure which type but it had a curved metal roof, and we children were not allowed into it.1950's so no need to go into it!

It really was the best thing on over Christmas. Shame they didn't give it a better slot.

This was absolutely lovely, I did so enjoy the gentleness of it. And it brought back memories. Altogether delightful.

Telly didn't interest or hold my attention this Christmas . But Ethel and Earnest was wonderful - it was amusing , known , cringy and sad all at the same time .
I always like the art work that Raymond Briggs does.

Loved it. Was as entranced as the children are when absorbed in something, a rareity for me.

About the Anderson Shelter - we had one - actually three, because we moved three times, and the last one was newly built for us; we were over-run with black beetles for the first few nights we stayed there, it was in the height of the blitz and we were in London. I can still hear the crack of these being squashed (in newspaper) and the feel of them as they crawled over us. Another of ours was at the end of the garden; we lived in a flat in a house the top flat being occupied by a strange spinster, who decided in the middle of an air-raid to walk down the garden to join us in the shelter (something she had never done before) with a candle! Our first one was a couple of yards from the outside toilet which was useful, but crowded, two families. Our friends had a Morrison, not sure if they ever used it, for me it was claustrophobic.

I also thought that it was a wonderful example of animation at its best. It would be good to see more of this. No pow/zap and stereotypical in-your-face images that characterise many animations.

Have you ever noticed that all female characters in Disney have huge eyes and lashes?

This was SO lovely. I think Raymond did stay with his wife f77ms She died not long after his mum and dad I think. Apologies if I have got that wrong!

I did enjoy this. Sad though.
I've read about the Morrison shelters, not seen one. But my Dad wrote about their Anderson one in his diary, guess what he was baling the water out. 'Rather like baling out the sea' he said.

I loved it . Sad that my parents weren`t like Ethel and Ernest with the quiet devotion they had to each other. What a wonderful Dad and Husband Ernest was . Ethel was like a lot of women of the time when keeping up appearances were everything . I must google Raymonds wife , I wonder if he stayed with her ?

How many of us remember the Anderson shelter in the garden? We had one, but I don't remember a Morrison type indoors.

Yes it was absolutely lovely and so true to the simple life which seems to have gone now.

Eloethan I did the same it was lovely I ll watch from the beginning on my iPad so simple but so true to life Did he stay with the mentally ill wife i ll have to google it all

Hear Hear Eloethan - a fine tribute to many parents of that era - including mine.