'Children of the Stones' (7 Parts) by Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray

Astrophysicist Adam Brake and his son Matthew arrive in the village of Milbury, a pleasant locale surrounded by an ancient stone circle; Adam plans to stay in the village for the next three months so that he can study the giant megalithic stones for his university. As Adam drives into the village, he and Matt see a stone in the middle of the road; Adam brakes just in time, but instead of the stone they now see their new housekeeper, Mrs Crabtree. After unpacking their possessions and equipment, Adam and Matthew meet several members of the village: their new landlord, the charming Lord of the Manor Raphael Hendrick; Margaret Smythe, the attractive curator of the village museum, and her daughter Sandra; and Dai, an eccentric poacher who warns of great evil in the village. Matt has brought with him a painting depicting a group of people dancing around a stone circle - not unlike the one surrounding Milbury - who are watched over by a giant serpent; the painting shocks Mrs Crabtree, but proves of great interest to Hendrick. Matt’s curiosity in the village is further piqued when he realises that there are fifty-three stones encircling Milbury – and now that he and his father have arrived in the village, there are also fifty-three villagers… Attending the local school, Matt meets ‘The Happy Ones’, intelligent but aloof students who are contemptuous of him and his new friends, Sandra, Jimmo Browning and Kevin Lyle. Adam discovers that a huge dish of rock lies deep beneath the village, its perimeter marked by the standing stones; Matt’s susceptibility to psychic forces leads him to suggest that psychic lines emanating from the stones form an inner circle – and at its centre lies Hendrick's manor house. That night, Matt sees the villagers dancing in a ring around the manor house, their voices chanting out into the night; Matt tries to get closer but is stopped by Dai, and in the confusion he falls against a stone and is rendered unconscious by a strange force; when Matt comes to back at the cottage, he is frustrated that his father attributes his story to mere sleepwalking. At school the following day, Matt, Sandra and Kevin are dismayed to find that Jimmo has joined the ranks of the Happy Ones. Meanwhile, Adam learns from Hendrick that the megaliths align in deep space with a black hole that he himself discovered: Hendrick's Supernova. After learning that Kevin and his father, Doctor Lyle are about to leave the village in order to visit an patient, Matt receives a vision of the stones somehow stopping them from crossing the perimeter; when he later meets Kevin and his father he finds that they too have become Happy Ones. Matt and Sandra then discover Dai's dead body, the amulet that he believed would protect him from evil now shattered into pieces; however, when they try to show the body to the local police, the body is gone, and in its place lies a fallen megalith. That night, Margaret and Sandra are invited to dinner at Hendrick’s manor house; using Sandra’s scarf, Matt watches psychically as a brilliant white light beams down from the heavens and transforms the girl and her mother into Happy Ones; they both then join the rest of the villagers as they dance around the house in a circle. Adam decides that he and Matt will leave the village first thing in the morning, but when they try to leave in their car, the menacing stones stop them. Adam and Matt realise that unless they can solve the secret that involving Hendrick and the ancient stone circle, they too will suffer the same fate as their friends…

Iain Cuthbertson (Rafael Hendrick / Joshua Litton), Gareth Thomas (Adam Brake), Freddie Jones (Dai), Veronica Strong (Margaret), Peter Demin (Matthew 'Matt' Brake), Katherine Levy (Sandra), Ruth Denning (Mrs. Crabtree), June Barrie (Miss Clegg), Ian Donnolly (Bob), Darren Hatch (Kevin), Gary Lock (Jimmo), Peggy Ann Wood (Mrs. Warner), Richard Matthews (Doctor Lyle), John Woodnutt (Link)

Produced and Directed by Peter Graham Scott
Executive Producer Patrick Dromgoole

TX (HTV West ):
Part 1: Into the Circle – 10th January, 1977
Part 2: Circle of Fear – 17th January, 1977
Part 3: Serpent in the Circle – 24th January, 1977
Part 4: Narrowing Circle – 31st January, 1977
Part 5: Charmed Circle – 7th February, 1977
Part 6: Squaring the Circle – 14th February, 1977
Part 7: Full Circle – 21st February, 1977

Notes:
*Introducing Adam Brake and Matthew 'Matt' Brake