Home And Away pre history.

[Homeandawayfan.]

H&A has quite a colourful backhistory as well as televised history. Some may know the creator was Alan Bateman.

I think production of H&A began in July 1987 but according to a January 1988 article about the soon to be first episode airing on 17th Jan that month that Alan Bateman had been working on the premise for Home And Away for 3 years.

http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=alan+bateman&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news880104_0152_5501

The premise of H&A may have been thought up as far back as 1984 or 1985 if you read this article.

[sindikatas]

This means that wikipedia is wrong and the show wasn't created because seven regreted letting go Neighbours.

[Jacklost]

So the show was never suppose to be?

[Homeandawayfan.]

So H&A must have been envisaged by 1985. Meaning it had a long gestation period before it began production and then airing. Bateman must have come up with the idea around the time Neighbours first aired if he had been working on H&A for 3 years by early 1988.

[j.laur5]

Home & Away replace Sons and Daughters!.

[elikell]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing the link to the article.

[Jezz]

Thanks for the link of the article mate

It was a very interesting read and you're right that filming first began in July 1987. I'm still a little perplexed as to when the idea of the show first came about. I always thought it was sometime after Channel 7 axed Neighbours at the end of 1985.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I did but it seems it was about 1984 or 1985 if Bateman had been working on the show for 3 years by Jan 1988. Maybe in 1984/1985 Bateman thought up the Fletcher family, and some locations for the new series and it was a few years before the production began.

It could be the Neighbours move and the cancellation of S&D which propelled H&A to the screens.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I did read an article a few weeks ago when typing up the pre history of H&A a few weeks ago on Google and found an article dated Oct 4 1987 from the Sydney Morning Herald saying the pilot episode had been shown by Bateman to his bosses and they gave the go ahead. Even though it was not nationally broadcast, this could class as the first showing of a H&A episode.

The article was from the Sydney Morning Herald. It seems to not show up in online searches anymore since I viewed the article.

I think it was early July 1987 that filming began of the pilot as on the SMH Archives website I typed Home And Away into their search engine and ones of the results was from 7 July 1987, you have to pay to view the full article.

[Gerard]

Interesting. So while at first glance it looks like H&A was devised as the replacement for Neighbours on Channel 7, it seems that H&A was being thought of when the original series of Neighbours was on air. I don't know how long it takes for a series to get from light-bulb-moment to pilot, but 3 years sounds credible.

I wonder if H&A would have ever seen the light of day on 7 had Neighbours not been axed? Also, if I remember correctly, Neighbours was going to be a co-production between Grundy and the BBC, but as the BBC daytime schedule was not ready at the time, it didn't happen. I wonder how that might have affected H&A...