Created by Alfred Shaughnessy, The Cedar Tree is a study of one fictional aristocratic family, the Bournes of Larkfield Manor, focusing particularly on daughters Elizabeth (21), Anne (18), and Victoria (16). Dependent on their parents for income and bound by the remnants of the previous century’s code of social behaviour, they represent a small backwater of Thirties life. The girls’ great hope is to find a suitable husband, and their expectations are high; but who is to know that what awaits all women at the end of the ‘devil’s decade’ is war?A huge success for ITV in the 1970s, The Cedar Tree picked up the reins for classy period drama from Upstairs Downstairs and is the precursor to today’s highly popular costume dramas such as Cranford and Downton Abbey.