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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Comedy
    Comedy TV Shows - 1990s 3 Mins Read

    Oh Doctor Beeching!

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    1 9 9 6 – 1 9 9 7 (UK)
    19 x 30 minute episodes

    Set at the (fictional) rural railway station of Hatley – and filmed at Arley on the Severn Valley Railway – Oh Doctor Beeching! was another nostalgic ensemble comedy from David Croft, this time penned in collaboration with former railwayman Richard Spendlove.

    The time was 1963, with Dr Beeching’s swinging cuts to the British railway network about to come into force. Fearful for their jobs, the station crew did their best to keep things alive.

    ohdoctorbeeching

    The staff were headed by new-broom station master Cecil Parkin (Jeffrey Holland).

    Other members of the Hatley crew included ticket collector/announcer Jack Skinner (Paul Shane) – whose days of scamming were coming to an end, Skinner’s wife, May (Julia Deakin), who ran the station buffet (and was apparently one of Cecil’s old flames during the war), the Skinner’s teenage daughter Gloria (Lindsay Grimshaw) – possibly the fruit of Cecil’s loins – and ticket clerk Ethel Schumann (Su Pollard).

    Ethel’s dim son Wilfred (Paul Aspden) – his US serviceman father long since disappeared – lent a hand here and there, while miserable Harry Lambert (a revival of Stephen Lewis’s Blakey character from On The Buses) manned the signal box, cut the men’s hair and grew vegetables.

    Engine driver’s widow Vera Plumtree (Barbara New) lived in one of the cottages behind the station, next door to Ethel and Wilfred.

    Regular callers at the station included engine-driver Arnold (Ivor Roberts), his hopeless fireman, Ralph (Perry Benson), and guard, Percy (Terry John).

    The series followed a 1995 pilot episode, in which May was played by Sherrie Hewson. Partly re-recorded, it was transmitted again as the first episode of series one a year later.

    Jack Skinner
    Paul Shane
    Ethel Schumann

    Su Pollard
    Cecil Parkin

    Jeffrey Holland
    May Skinner

    Julia Deakin
    Vera Plumtree

    Barbara New
    Harry Lambert

    Stephen Lewis
    Arnold

    Ivor Roberts
    Ralph

    Perry Benson
    Percy

    Terry John
    Gloria Skinner

    Lindsay Grimshaw
    Wilfred Schumann

    Paul Aspden
    Amy Matlock

    Tara Daniels
    Mr Orkindale

    Richard Spendlove

    Episodes

    All Change | Talking Turkey | The Train Now Standing . . . | A Moving Story | The Late Mr Buckly | Horse Play | Past Love | Job Opportunity | Sleeping Around | No Milk For The Minister | Father’s Day | The Gravy Train | The Van | Lucky Strike | Love Is A Very Splendid Thing | A Bowl In The Hand | Action Stations | A Pregnant Pause | Ton Up

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