Writer Troy Kennedy Martin was confined to bed with a bout of mumps and passed his time listening to a police radio. It was then he realised that Dixon of Dock Green was out of date. He set out to create a realistic, new police series for the sixties, and thus, Z Cars was born.
The location was the tough dockland area of Liverpool in the north of England. He renamed Kirkby to Newtown and Seaforth to Seaport. The fictional Lancashire town of Newtown was an overspill estate, lacking amenities and any sense of community.
The series opened on 2 January 1962 with the burial of PC Reginald Farrow, who had been shot on duty. The answer was to introduce a “Crime Patrol” using unmarked fast-response Ford Zephyr patrol cars.
‘Z Victor One’ (the ‘Z’ stood for Zulu, not Zephyr) was soon cruising around with Northern hard man PC 1648 William “Fancy” Smith (Brian Blessed) and Scottish rugby star PC 2900 Jock Weir (Joseph Brady) onboard.
‘Z Victor Two’ contained Irishman PC 274 Bert Lynch (James Ellis) and redhead PC 3260 Bob Steele (Jeremy Kemp).
These two Victor Division crime patrol units were supported by the uniform branch and CID: A uniformed sergeant and police constable, a detective chief inspector, a detective sergeant and a detective constable.
In Z Cars, Liverpool had the type of policemen it deserved. These bobbies were no angels.
PC Lynch liked a flutter on the horses, while Constable Steele – a good cop with a turbulent home life – was not above a spot of wife-beating. Violence on the beat was rewarded with violence from the coppers on the beat as they encountered harsh urban realities very different from those on Dixon’s patch.
The Police Association, the viewers (and even Jack Warner, old Dixon himself) all complained, but within two months, Z Cars was attracting 14 million viewers.
Stories were confined to small social or criminal happenings, and the series maintained an air of reality.
Episode titles emphasised the documentary flavour: ‘Affray’, ‘Policework’, ‘A Place of Safety’, ‘Friday Night’.
The series was transmitted live to air (with some pre-filmed inserts) from Studio Six at the BBC Television Centre. The live transmission gave an edge to performances and technique, and productions enjoyed the verve of an adrenaline rush.
There could be as many as 15 sets per episode, with actors racing between them. Men sat in half-cars with a street projected onto a screen behind them.
The two characters who created the most impact were Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow (Stratford Johns) and Detective John Watt (Frank Windsor). Barlow was a huge man, prone to the occasional spot of verbal or physical violence, while the gentler Watt was his ideal foil.
The original run of Z Cars ended in 1965, Barlow, Watt and Blackitt moved to the Regional Crime Squad and spun off into a new series, Softly Softly (1966 -1970).
Barlow eventually gained two more series of his own: Barlow at Large (1971 – 1973) and Barlow (1974 – 1976), in which he was promoted eventually to Detective Chief Superintendent.
Z Cars was revived in March 1967 in a twice-weekly soap opera format of 25-minute episodes.
Only Bert Lynch and Jock Weir remained from the original run of the show.
Pandas now zoomed around the Newtown streets instead of Zephyrs, and the series returned to its 50-minute format when it switched to colour in January 1970, with the 300th episode airing a week later.
The late Elwyn Jones, then BBC TV Head of Series and Executive Producer of Z Cars, turned down The Beatles before they became famous for a background band appearance in an episode.
Michael Caine turned down the part of PC Steele, and future Monkees star Davy Jones appeared in three episodes (including the debut episode, ‘Four of a Kind’).
John Thaw played a detective constable who had to leave the force because he couldn’t drink hard enough in four episodes.
The series’ memorable theme tune was adapted from a folk song called Johnny Todd (“Johnny Todd, he took a notion/For to sail the ocean wide”). The Everton football team adopted the anthem in 1963.
DI Charlie Barlow
Alan Stratford Johns
DS James ‘John’ Watt
Frank Windsor
PC ‘Fancy’ Smith
Brian Blessed
PC Jock Weir
Joseph Brady
PC/Sgt Herbert ‘Bert’ Lynch
James Ellis
DI Dunn
Dudley Foster
PC Bob Steele
Jeremy Kemp
PC Ian Sweet
Terence Edmond
Sgt Percy Twentyman
Leonard Wiliams Mary Watt
Gwen Cherrell
Sgt Blackitt
Robert Keegan
PC David Graham
Colin Welland
Detective Supt. Miller
Leslie Sands
DI Sam Hudson
John Barrie
PC Ken Baker
Geoffrey Whitehead PC Raymond Walker
Donald Gee
DS Tom Stone
John Slater
PC Owen Culshaw
David Daker
PC Alec May
Stephen Yardley
WPC Jane Shepherd
Luanshya Greer
PC Steve Tate
Sebastian Breaks PC Finch
Christopher Denham
DI Goss
Derek Waring
DC Scatliff
Geoffrey Hayes
PC Quilley
Douglas Fielding WPC Parkin
Pauline Taylor
WPC Jane Beck
Victoria Plucknett
WPC Jill Howarth
Stephanie Turner
WPC Bayliss
Alison Steadman
DI Witty
John Woodvine
DI Bamber
Leonard Rossiter
PC Newcombe
Bernard Holley
PC Roger Stevens
Ralph Watson
DC Skinner
Ian Cullen
DI Todd
Joss Ackland
Z Cars was revived in March 1967 in a twice-weekly soap opera format of 25-minute episodes.
Mary Watt 
PC Raymond Walker 
PC Finch 
WPC Parkin 
