The play was originally written for BBC Radio 4, airing on 17 September 1972.
[1] The BBC said of it "Mr Bradnum's new play has that astonishing ease and easy depth that come with maturity; technique is undetectable; humanity, occasionally in the past veiled by self-consciousness, shines through, clear and warm.
"[2] In August 1975 the play was dramatised for the theatre by David Ambrose.
[3] In 1975 it was also adapted into a television film by Ambrose and Troy Kennedy-Martin and directed by John Jacobs.
[4] The British Film Institute summarizes the plot as "the peaceful rural life of a retired Brigadier is shattered by the arrival of the Company Sergeant-Major on his doorstep.