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By Tim Greaves

Director John Mackenzie's powerful and captivating 1972 kitchen sink drama Made has been given the opportunity to find a new audience via a tasty UK Blu-Ray release from Network Distributing.

Valerie Marshall (Carol White) is a single mother eking out a meagre living as a London telephone exchange operator whilst simultaneously caring for her multiple-sclerosis-stricken mother (Margery Mason). Seemingly destined never to find true happiness and weary of the inapposite attentions of would-be suitors, Valerie agrees to assist priest and family friend Father Dyson (John Castle) in chaperoning a bunch of underprivileged youths on a day trip to the seaside. There she meets folk singer Mike Preston (Roy Harper), whose outwardly relaxed approach to life just might pave her way to salvation.

A slightly ponderous and largely dispiriting snapshot of early 1970s lower class Britain, I'll openly confess that when I first saw Made I was convinced it would leave me cold.

My aunt, Margery Mason, who has died aged 100, was an actor, writer and theatre manager. She was a founder member of the Actors' Company and made appearances in diverse productions, from Midsomer Murders to a Harry Potter film.

Born and brought up in Hackney, east London, she came from a modest background, and after rudimentary education left school at 15. Her parents ran a semi-professional dramatic company, from which Margery's acting career developed. Initially she performed in their company at working men's clubs in the East End of London, starting as principal boy in pantos, then succeeding to adult parts, sometimes competing with her mother for the starring female roles. Her father ran an early cinema, the Hackney Bioscope, and subsequently established the Impartial Film Report, which distributed weekly film reviews to the then many independent cinemas. Margery attended film trade showings, wrote reviews and helped produce the Report.

Before the...