I'm happy to be in league with Hawkins and his merry men

Sue Wilkinson on why she loves classic British film

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Morally louche, uprightly British and stiff-upper-lipped, The League of Gentlemen is a classic film.

Talking Pictures UK has put the film, released in1960, in its schedules in all its unclipped, unbleeped glory.

Everything about it shouts class - including one of its themes which explores the fate of members of the Army officer class once they return to civvy street.

The cast is led by the incomparable Jack Hawkins as Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde. His is a towering presence.

It was heavy-smoker Hawkins' last film before he succumbed to the cancer which led to the loss of his voice as distinctive as Richard Burton's. From then on, his films were dubbed.

Frustrated and angry by the way the country treats its war veterans, he plans Operation Golden Fleece - an audacious, meticulously planned heist in the City of London and then recruits a gang to carry it 'orf'.