VALERIE COGAN starred in this six-part drama series developed by British writer Elizabeth Gowans from her award-winning TV play A Woman of Good Character. Heart of the High Country followed the fortunes of Ceci, a young English woman who emigrates to New Zealand at the turn of the century full of hope for a new life in a new land. When she arrives in the South Island the high country sheep runs already exist alongside smaller farming blocks. There is wealth and poverty. Of all the New Zealand provinces, Canterbury most closely preserves the class structure of England, and Ceci is working class. Plagued by misfortune and trauma, she is raped, has a child and witnesses a murder. Her circumstances are wretched but a twist of fate takes her to a high country station where at last she finds a chance to better herself.

Directed by Sam Pillsbury (The Scarecrow), Heart of the High Country also stars Kenneth Cranham, Peter Bland (Came a Hot Friday), David Letch and Frank Whitten (Open House).

Heart of the High Country - Episode One

Available on DVD and vhs

 

She took ship for New Zealand as little more than a child. In the desolate beauty of the high country she very soon had to become a woman

From relentless drudgery in the parched hills to the green-lawned luxury of a great house from the wild passion of love to the deep despair of less from Victorian England to the Heart of the High Country this is the unforgettable story of Ceci Bowes, try rich as the land she came to call her own. 

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