Much of the book happens then, with a parallel hero who rises from below the salt to knight. Costain was a Canadian who worked for Doubleday and wrote several historical romances. I, of course, read it hoping to sneer; the reference books are sniffy about him But it's a ripping read. It was published here by Collins, now HarperCollins, who are distinctly unmoved by John's imprimatur Someone else should republish it in time for Christmas. How can a book endorsed by both The Captain and Major fail? Oh, suit yourselves, then.AN ELEGANT flier lands on my desk, trailing a Channel 4 television series called Plunder. There will be three programmes, apparently, telling "the story of how three world-famous works of arts were plundered". The three works are the bust of Nefertiti, taken by a German archaeologist; the Pergamon Altar, "used by both Germans and Russians for their national glorification"; and The Venus De Milo, whipped by the Frenchies.

Sorry? Something missing? The Parth-enon? That Greek singer who used to jump up and down about those bits in the British Museum? Don't know what you're on about, squire.READY for a Wiggin': Junket Jerry Wiggin putting on a brave face for the Moonlight cameras before going into the Whips Office for a bit of a grilling over the "cash for amendments" furore. Jerry is holding up for inspection the stuffing he was about to put down the back of his trousers. He was rather coy about the hair net, but a Westminster "insider" told us that errant Tory MPs quite often employ hair nets and shower caps to protect their coiffures against one of the Whips' more severe punishments, turning the MP upside down and putting his head in a bowl of cold custard. Actually, it's Billy Beaumont, whose particular brand of method acting is currently lighting up our screens in an attempt to sell more Shredded Wheat Billy is pictured on a visit to a SW factory And this, mark you, is a former England rugby union captain.

You would not, I guarantee you, get a League man posing like a jessie in this fashion.. "THE opening tonight on BBC2 of The Forsyte Saga, that immense chronicle of what is sometimes called John Galsworthy's England, has all the marks of a great adventure in British television," wrote one critic in January 1967. "It will be with us for six months; one hears of owners of BBC2 sets inviting their friends in for Forsyte parties." He was right: it was a great adventure. For 26 Saturdays, from 8.10pm until Whicker's World came on at 9pm, half the country was hooked on the doings of Soames, Irene, Uncle James, Winifred, Monty Dartie, Fleur and the various Jolyons.

No costume serial before or since has been so intently followed. A measure of its legacy is that, when Eric Porter died last week after half a century as a distinguished actor, he was still universally identified with the role of Soames he created 28 years ago. The first screening was controversial, partly because of the liberties that the producer, Donald Wilson, had taken with Galsworthy's novels, but more because it was not on BBC1 but on BBC2, which at that time was just three years old and reached only three in five of the country's sets.This was deliberate. The Corporation's managers felt a big attraction was needed to raise the profile of its new channel, and The Forsyte Saga, costing an unprecedented pounds 10,000 per 50-minute episode (although still shot in black and white), was the biggest it could manage.Deprived viewers - The Val Doonican Show was BBC1's Saturday night alternative - bombarded the BBC and the newspapers with furious letters, announcing that they would cancel their Radio Times subscriptions or boycott BBC2 for ever.The channel's controller, David Attenborough, was obliged to defend himself by saying that, although it was called BBC2, this did not mean its output had to be second best. It was not until September of the following year that the series found its way on to the first channel, and even then it drew an audience of 18 million.But the public arguments were nothing to the heat generated by the drama itself. The tortured marriage of the ambitious, repressed Soames and the beautiful but infuriating Irene, leading to the sensational rape scene in episode eight, provoked the greatest excitement. Was he a monster or had he been pushed too far? - the debate was every bit as frenzied as that over last week's murder verdict in Brookside.