Parkin's Patch

Parkin's Patch

I once asked Andrew if I could write for the blog, as I prefer to scribe rather than broadcast, sometimes. Thankfully he graciously said, ‘Yes. OK’ - that’s a commission in ‘Round the Archives’ speak, by the way. But I got sidelined with things like ‘Life’, ‘Work’ and watching my ever-expanding archive of retro television and Sci Fi ‘B’-movies.

Also, I was looking for an angle; something to bind a series of articles together rather than stick a pin in a heap of DVDs. So I broke down subject matters and thought it best I stick to what I knew. "That’s easy" thinks I...

I need a challenge. An investigation, perhaps, into Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue.

The Borrowed? That’s easy, I’m borrowing an episode of a series or serial to use as an example of a typical set piece. The Old and/or New? Archive or recent programmes broadcast from the early days up to say the last 20 years - that's still relatively new to us! The Blue? Be it ever so humble, that bastion of all Television staples the ‘Cop Show’. From 'Murder Bag' to 'Wild Bill', 'Dixon' to 'Line Of Duty'; the subject matter is forever evolving.

So, I’ve been a little cannier than just plonking a number of bog-standard shows on the autopsy slab. I've mixed the old with the recent, the simple with the complex and the popular with the long-forgotten.

Readers and listeners of 'Round The Archives', I’m proud to give you the first slice of my contribution that doesn’t involve writing an obituary.

I give you Part One of ‘Regional Rozzers’...

Now Elwyn Jones must have been minted. Rolling in it! His was a name that dominated the late sixties, and early seventies in the area of the television crime series. He favoured no channel; BBC or ITV, he was happy to slave away over his hot typewriter, banging out 'Softly Softly, Task Force', 'Barlow [Is Large]', 'Jack the Ripper' (the Barlow and Watt investigation as featured in edition of 'RTA' Episode 25) and 'Second Verdict'. The man was unstoppable.

But it’s not one of these major productions of his that caught my eye a couple of years ago, but a little regional number where the Yorkshire accents were thick and so was the ale.

'Parkin’s Patch' is one of those forgotten little treasures that’s available on DVD, but isn’t really mentioned by anyone. Laced with so many fresh new faces just breaking into television and old hands popping up all over the place, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of northern acting, but as we will discover not necessarily of the Yorkshire ilk.

Yorkshire Television started transmitting on Monday 29th July 1968, from its Leeds studios and (get this!) it was the first purpose-built colour production studio in the UK. In fact, it was so new that even though its programmes were produced in colour it wasn’t until 15th November 1969 that they transmitted in colour. Before that it was B&W only, mainly because colour sets were as about as rare as a Yorkshire ‘BAFTA’ at that time.

So, production started in their Kirkstall Road studios of the new 25-minute crime drama ‘Parkin’s Patch’ with Elwyn in full creative and writing mode for a number of the episodes. For all 26 episodes of the first and only season the producer was Terence Williams, later in charge of 'Juliet Bravo' and ‘The Chinese Detective’.  So, the production was in good hands, although it was never going to reach the public recognition of something like 'The Sweeney'.

This was a nice small provincial policing drama set in the fictional town of Fickley, nestling somewhere in the North Yorkshire Moors. Using the then much-heralded ‘Unit Beat Policing’ model, the series capitalised on the work of the lowly beat bobby, living within his community in his Police House/Station. This was years before ‘Heartbeat’ but it's clear to see how the formula was remorselessly plundered and rebranded to fit the profile of the then up-and-coming star Nick Berry in 1992. Please note this too is a Yorkshire TV production, although based on a series of books.

Anyway where was I? Oh yes. the series is headed by the lead character PC 501 Moss Parkin who appears in the opening titles to speak into his high tech ‘PYE’ police radio, uttering the legend “501 TO CONTROL” and then turns to survey his beat of the quite frankly unimpressive housing estates of Fickley. Actor John Flanagan is great for the part; this is the beginning of a long career portraying policemen. Here as the young married PC trying to get on within a community of gruff and somewhat eccentric Northerners, he shines through aided in part by the banter between him and the local CID Officer, DC Ron Radley, played by a young Gareth Thomas. So, he’s Welsh playing Yorkshire, while their boss Chief Superintendent Atkins is played by Scottish veteran Robert Urquhurt using a ‘cod’ Yorkshire accent.

Thank goodness for his wife Beth Parkin, played by Heather Page. Plus Peter Sallis, Warren Clarke, James Grout and Amos Brearly (OK, Ronald Magill, but he's always be Amos to me!) as the publican of one of Fickley’s many watering holes. Typecasting strikes again!

All 26 episodes exist, with storylines ranging from sheep rustling, swine fever, army deserters and con artists left, right and (Harrogate town) centre. There are a couple of episodes made solely in B&W mainly because the location work on those two episodes was filmed in B&W by accident.  Oh yes, the Christmas episode is a ghost story with a twist!
  
The episode ‘Nothing Personal’ was transmitted on Friday 5th December 1969. Transmission times are all over the shop depending upon which region you’re in. Anglia got the episode at 3.25pm, though everyone else gets it at various points in the evening. So, this wasn’t a national opt-in programme.

The titles roll and cut to film of someone in a hooded jacket (is it a parka, Lisa?) approaching the outside of Parkin’s Police House, forcing the door and breaking into his office. It's nicely shoot with proper night filming. In fact, there’s real night filming throughout this one. Mixed with typical Yorkshire rain, the set-up sting is quite promising. Cut to PC Parkin patrolling the streets in his Land Rover, jabbering on his police radio.

Beth his wife wakes upstairs to hear a crashing sound downstairs and clad in a shortie nightie goes to investigate, as you do. There's some wonderful late 60s décor going on here; lots of yellows, purples and browns, but why are the beds so small and so low? Were we all that much shorter in the 1960s? Cut to the intruder going to town on the police office, turning over a desk and ripping the phone out. You really think that if Mrs Parkin comes downstairs it’ll be ‘good night Vienna’.

Racking the tension up, with close-up shots, Beth enters the wrecked Police Office, and receives a shiner for her troubles. The would-be wrecker makes good their escape after delivering the haymaker. Beth gathers herself up, and realising that the phone lines are cut, uses DC Ron Bradley’s discarded police radio to summon help. PC Parkin races to the scene and the usual ritual of comforting followed by anger and rage at the perpetrator is played out.

Then enter DC Bradley as back-up stating he’s just heard the news. This is minor hole in the plot as Beth has his radio and he’s on duty (down the pub investigating a ‘lock in’ knowing Bradley). Throughout the whole series it's easy to see that CID have a strong reputation for supping in the line of duty. DC Bradley and the crime car (maybe Z Victor 2 as they like to drive off their patch a lot) start to search the not-so-heaving streets of Fickley.

The storyline progresses, and the tension is ramped up another notch as Beth starts to receive threatening phone calls. An attempt is made to trace them but this fails to get results.

Beth wonders if the attacker could be a relative of someone Moss has ‘Put Away’ but this is far from the truth, as we find out. She visits the family of man whose life Moss saved when he was having a stroke. The son, who idolises his father, blames Moss for saving his dad's life when all he wanted was to die. So, the son has deliberately targeted her to force Moss to pack up and leave the area.

It's that nice little touch of removing the obvious and inserting the left-field that helps the series along. Elwyn Jones has a nice way of weaving a very human aspect into what the might audience perceive as a mundane over-used plotline. This is Jones having a bash at a Northern 'Dixon' and it pays off. 26 episodes divided over a handful of writers is a tall order. You need to develop the characters and keep up the pace all within a 25-minute slot, something ‘The Bill’ often struggled with at that running-time. At least with 'Parkin’s Patch' you could set the storylines over two or three days, rather than solving a major crime on the same day.

As a drama it's not heavy. It's easy to delve in and out of without fear of losing any crucial character development. The storylines are fluid and the subject matter is always dealt with a serious undertone. If there is one thing I do have a hang-up with, it's the set designs. It’s too obvious that they are just flats on studio floors, resulting in a lack of depth to them. This, however, does not take away from the wonderful performances put in by regular and visiting artists. That rich Yorkshire drawl is fantastic and adds just that right amount of earthy grittiness to the plot.

So, if you’re hard up for something to watch, or fancy a relaxed but fun series to cut your Yorkshire Drama Teeth on, this is a grand start, lad!
 
And currently priced at £12.99 (at Amazon, but available from other good DVD stockists and retailers) for 26 episodes, it's not one that will break the piggy bank.

Next Time on ‘Regional Rozzers’: 

Things get a whole lot darker in the Welsh Valleys as the great Philip Madoc dons his anorak to investigate some very suspect goings on in ‘A Mind To Kill’...

(Written by Warren Cummings)