The Belles Of St. Godwalds

Justina Bradleigh is a beautiful but spoilt 18-year-old pupil at St Godwald’s, a girls’ public school. She is secretly going out with Perry, a cocky young man who is constructing the school’s new swimming pool. She is very bitchy to Deborah, her father’s new girlfriend.

Ken and Harry are employed to guard a fashion show and charity gala that the school will shortly be staging. The school receives a bomb threat, which the headmistress, Hester McCullock, says is just the latest in a long line of pranks which are starting to affect the reputation of the school. Hester asks Ken to investigate before parents start threatening to take their girls away.

Harry is keen to join the local branch of the Conservative party, of which Simon Bradleigh is the chairman. Simon tells Harry that “the party takes a dim view of confirmed bachelors”, so Harry is under pressure to find himself a wife! Simon tells him that he knows of “an exclusive introduction bureau” run by Davina Barclay. Harry is very sceptical but agrees to give it a try. Simon also asks Harry to keep an eye on Deborah to make sure that she is respectable – he has his political career to think of. Harry passes this job to Rocky. Harry plucks up his courage and goes to see Davina Barclay who arranges for him to meet his date, “Kate Fowler”. Harry falls for her and invites her out for dinner, not realising that she is really Deborah! Rocky follows Deborah to the restaurant and is rather shocked to see that she is having dinner with Harry. Rocky manages to break the news discretely to Harry who challenges Deborah. She admits that she works for Davina and sometimes acts as a temporary escort until Davina finds a real client for her client. Harry agrees not to tell Simon, providing she agrees to give up working at the agency – and providing she gets Harry’s money back from Davina!

Justina goes missing from school. Hester receives a long plait of Justina’s hair through the post and suspects that she has been kidnapped. The envelope also contains a ransom demand: a valuable map that the school owns. Hester wants Justina found before Simon finds out; she agrees not to call the police for the sake of Justina, Simon and the school’s. Ken questions Justina’s room-mate, Monica, who says that she thinks Justina may be in on the kidnap: she had kept making cryptic remarks about Perry’s “exciting plans”. She suggests trying to trace the hairdresser who cut off her plait: Justina is so vain that she would not let “just anybody” cut her hair.

Justina, with a new haircut, is staying at Perry’s flat. They are planning to run away together and Perry wants to keep her hidden until he has got hold of the picture. When she finds just one plane ticket, she starts to smell a rat. Rocky eventually finds the hairdresser who identifies Justina and Perry as his customers. While Perry is out, Ken and Monica go to Perry’s flat and convince Justina that she is in serious trouble. They make her realise that Perry is just a con man and that, once he has the picture, he has no intention of taking her with him.

Perry has arranged to collect the map, wrapped round a stick of French bread, at the charity gala on Saturday. Ken consults his friend D S Hatchard who recommends that Hester should agree to Perry’s plans; Ken and Hatchard will wait until Perry has incriminated himself before arresting him. The gala’s star guest, real-life model Marie Helvin, arrives in an America limousine. During the fashion show, Perry retrieves the map and flees when Ken challenges him. The police arrive and cut off the escape routes, but Perry flees on foot through the crowd and the models on the catwalk. He tries to escape in one of Harry’s CBS vans but the Alsatian guard dog in the back of the van keeps him “occupied” until the police arrive.

I have recorded the spelling of the title exactly as it was displayed in the opening credits, without an apostrophe!

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1998

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48