ABSTRACT
A Man Called Ironside is a conscious enactment of the values of an ordered, stable, liberal-conservative society. Its very existence as such presupposes that such values are on the defensive, and as a result it may appear to be of a piece with some of the products of the ‘nostalgia boom’ of the early 1970s. However, these products, such as Upstairs Downstairs, Colditz, Edward VII, The Forsyte Saga and other dramatized novels, are all set in the past. Ironside has to relate its nostalgia-based values much more explicitly to the contemporary city.
