It has been almost four decades since Home and Away exploded onto television screens and fans may not know that the Australian soap originally had a completely different name
Home and Away first aired back in 1988 and originally had a very different name.
Over the past 36 years, the Australian soap has been entertaining audiences across the globe. It was created by Alan Bateman who came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point, New South Wales, where he noticed locals were complaining about the construction of a foster home and against the idea of foster children from the city living in the area.
The show was initially going to be called Refuge, but the name was changed to the “friendlier” title of Home and Away once production began. It premiered in what Bateman classified as a 90 minute tele-feature known subsequently in re-runs and on VHS titled as Home and Away: The Movie, as opposed to a pilot.
Since then, each subsequent episode has aired for a duration of 22 minutes. Home and Away has become the second longest-running drama series in Australian television, after Neighbours. It follows the lives and loves of the residents in Summer Bay, a fictional seaside town in New South Wales.
The series initially focused on the Fletcher family – Tom (Roger Oakley) and Pippa (Vanessa Downing), and their five foster children, Frank Morgan (Alex Papps), Carly Morris (Sharyn Hodgson), Lynn Davenport (Helena Bozich), Steven Matheson (Adam Willits) and Sally Fletcher (Kate Ritchie) – who moved from the city into the Summer Bay House, where they assumed the new job of running the caravan park, and eventually took in a sixth foster child, Bobby Simpson (Nicolle Dickson).
During the first season alone, it featured several adult-themed storylines such as teen pregnancy, rape, drug and alcohol addiction, drug overdose and attempted suicide.
The series has dealt with similar storylines over the years which have often exceeded its restricted time slot. Palm Beach in Sydney’s Northern Beaches district has been used as the location for Summer Bay since 1988.
The exterior scenes are filmed mainly at Palm Beach, while the interior scenes are filmed at the Australian Technology Park in Redfern.
