A scarecrow with a mind of its own, an old man with a black top hat, dirty black suit who seemed to inhabit hedgerows but had power over him and other scarecrows, who would appear at certain times, and behave like the now over used undead. I remember one episode when our hero was called before a scarecrow court for some scarecrow themed crime.Possibly vegetable based or looking through a window in the dead of night type felony. That was the one that sticks in my head, the one with the other scarecrows. They came to bring him to his trial. Stiff figures appeared through the corn like their present day contemporaries, silent and dead eyed. I remember sitting and watching as they lumbered through the dry stalks. Their only purpose the apprehension of said strawy criminal. Perhaps this instance was the start of my fascination with the passed on who rise up to plague the living. The origin of my dreams of resisting the masses of grey and rotting all the sames who want to include me in their team.
One thing about him though, was his ability to change heads. A different head for different situations. I don't know whether or not the intention was there, whether or not the writers were trying to say something about the nature of fitting in but as I'm now a grown up, I find I'm doing exactly the same thing.
It's now completely acceptable for me, as part of my own scarecrow society, to wear a work head, a weekend head , an out with people from work head and all the other heads I have for all the situations I could find myself in. It's expected of me.
Should I want to wear one head all the time, well, that's when the problems start. What if I have the wrong head for the wrong day? What if my weekend head won't come off and I walk in on any given Monday with slightly the wrong attitude? Will it all come crashing down around my wrong head? I doubt it. It hasn't so far and I've worn the wrong head to more than one occasion before now. The possible truth is that all my heads have the same ideas. They just come out randomly, regardless of the situation and not as The Crowman would always like them to.
More worrying than having to have numerous heads, is the fact that some other scarecrows only seem to have the one worky head. This one, they never seem to take off and seem bent on trying to fill mine with their ideas on how I should think and be. Other scarecrows seemed to have no ideas in theirs. What's the Crow man going to do about that? He could try and fill them with his but he needs straw filled turnip heads like me for that.
Let's see which head I have on tomorrow.
I'm hoping for the Cup o tea and slice of small group size one....
I loved Worzel Gummidge. He wasn't scary at all! The Crowman, however, was absolutely terrifying! And the scarecrow courtroom is definitely an episode that sticks out in my mind. I thought it was a brilliant show though. I have them all on DVD now, for the kids to watch. They're all too scared of him to watch it though. I think Pertwee was an amazing actor, and I loved his Doctor Who episodes too. Heh, Worzel - brings a whole new meaning to "My head's in the shed!" :P
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