Is There Honey Still for Tea?

Is There Honey Still for Tea? is the third episode of the eighth British comedy series Dad's Army that was originally broadcast on Friday, 19 September 1975. The title is taken from the concluding line of Rupert Brooke's 1912 poem, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester:

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

Synopsis

Private Godfrey's Cherry Tree Cottage is set to be flattened to make way for a new aerodrome. Frazer, however, champions his cause. He knows the minister responsible for the plan, and he knows his father, and he knows about an incident in the draper's shop...

Plot

The episode opens with Mainwaring keenly anticipating the arrival of his new office door (the last having been destroyed by bomb damage). He is disappointed, however, to discover the replacement is made out of paper. Various misfortunes occur to it, leaving the door in ruins in a matter of minutes.

The Colonel informs them that Private Godfrey's cottage is to be flattened to make way for a new aerodrome. Mainwaring summons Jones and Frazer to the bank and tries to work out how best to break the news to Godfrey. Mainwaring resolves to go and inform Godfrey personally. He, Pike and Wilson walk out to pay a call to Cherry Tree Cottage, only to be invited to stay for tea. During the visit Mainwaring repeatedly puts off telling Godfrey, and finally tries to shift the responsibility, and make Wilson tell him - a job his Sergeant shirks. The three of them depart the cottage, with Godfrey seemingly none the wiser about his fate.

Next Mainwaring tries to persuade Jones and Frazer to do the deed as the two oldest members of the platoon. Frazer abandons Jones, leaving him to tell Godfrey alone. Slightly awkwardly, Jones begins a rambling and convoluted explanation - only to find that Godfrey already knows, having received official notification several days before. He innocuously mentions that he meant to tell Captain Mainwaring, but he didn't want to "upset him". Jones offers to let Godfrey stay with him, which he accepts.

Later, Frazer makes a call to the home of the government minister in charge of building the new aerodrome, Sir Charles Renfrew McAllister, in the middle of the night - and subtly threatens him with exposure, for his youthful transgressions, if he does not re-consider the scheme.

The next scene shows the platoon helping to load the furniture in Hodges' van as he prepares to move out, with a melancholic Godfrey and his sisters watching as their possessions being carried away. Frazer arrives, bearing news of the official decision to shift the aerodrome several hundred yards, meaning that Godfrey's cottage will now be on the edge of it rather than in the middle. The platoon respond with delight, leaving an irate Hodges, shaking his fist and calling Mainwaring a chiseller.

The episode ends with a tea party at Godfrey's cottage, in which he thanks Mainwaring for saving his house unaware, as they all are, that it was in fact Frazer who was responsible. In the final scene the tea party - which is being held on the lawn of Godfrey's cottage - is interrupted by a plane which has just taken off from the aerodrome, flying over the cottage at very low level and blowing everyone and everything around the garden.

Notes

• Pike references two films in this episode The Ghost Goes West (1938) in which an American millionaire transports a castle from Scotland to California, and Dangerous Moonlight (1941) about the life and romance of an anti-Nazi Polish pilot, who is also a concert pianist, and fights in the Battle of Britain. John Laurie appeared in the film.

Cast

• Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring
• John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson
• Clive Dunn as Lance Corporal Jones
• John Laurie as Private Frazer
• Arnold Ridley as Private Godfrey
• Ian Lavender as Private Pike
• Bill Pertwee as ARP Warden Hodges
• Gordon Peters as The man with the door
• Robert Raglan as The Colonel
• Campbell Singer as Sir Charles McAllister
• Joan Cooper as Dolly
• Kathleen Saintsbury as Cissy