Children of the Stones.

Everyone knows Stonehenge is for wimps and that Avebury's where it's at, a stone circle so big there's an entire village inside it.

And we all know it's where it's at because of one thing; Children of the Stones, the 1976 originated children's TV show that put it on the map for an entire generation and taught us never to trust anything vertical that's made of rock.

In the spirit of nostalgia and because the current heatwave has got everyone talking about the legendary one of 1976, I've just been rewatching the first episode, in order to regain that summer of '76 vibe - and what an episode it is, quickly introducing us to a village populated by strange people who stand in front of speeding cars for no good reason, stare in through your windows, watch you with telescopes and invite you to accompany them on bike rides when you've never met them before.

Not only that but it has a school filled with children who're far too cheerful and far too good at complex equations, everyone greets you by saying, "Happy day," and your new landlord's in the habit of appearing from thin air, in the middle of your living room.

Admittedly, I suspect that last thing is down to clumsy editing rather than him actually having the power to teleport but, still, it all adds to the sense that something isn't right.

What's going on is that astrophysicist Adam Brake and his son Matthew arrive in a village that's clearly Avebury (although it's never admitted that it is) and things immediately start to get weird, thanks to strange locals and a sinister painting of the stone circle. As Adam sets out to research the standing stones, Matthew finds himself in the local school and being one of only three children there who could be called normal. The episode ends with Adam touching one of the stones and instantly discovering why that's not a good idea.

It's hard to write a drama about stone circles that isn't good and this episode is as irresistible now as it was back then. It's a little heavy-handed when it comes to its sense of weirdness and mystery; it's not hinted from the start that something's wrong in the village, every single exchange between every single character in every single scene tells us there is.

But who cares? If God had wanted us to do subtlety, he wouldn't have given us stone circles in the first place. The story's compelling, the mystery's engineered to suck you in, the music's unforgettable and, most of all, the standing stones are suitably enigmatic. You have to credit our primitive ancestors. They might not have known much about television but they knew how to design a backdrop for it.

Many much-loved children's TV shows from our past don't stand up to later scrutiny. This one does and I can, thus, give it the highly-coveted Steve Does Comics seal of approval which all shows with any sense crave.