Bootle Saddles

1 9 8 4 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

Blackpool boarding house owner Percy “Call me Jesse” James (Kenneth Cope of Randall & Hopkirk: Deceased fame), his wife, Isobel (Anne Carroll) and their sexy daughter Betty (Debbie Arnold) sold up and built an authentic Wild West town, called ‘Apache Wells ‘, in the gloomy, rainy Lancashire countryside.

He wore cowboy clothes, a pair of Remington guns which fired blanks, and organised week-long holidays for a motley group of like-minded Western fans. who flocked to the mock-up town to recreate the Old West.

The first to arrive were the Chesterfield Commancheros, Jim Turnbull of the Rochdale Rough Riders, and the fastest gun in Manchester, Hank Price (Gordon Rollings in one of his final appearances), the legendary Wythenshawe Kid, who carried a gun in one hand and an ear trumpet in the other.

Regular weekend guests Tom and Rita Henderson (John Normington and Shirley Stelfox) took their frontier roleplay incredibly seriously.

Most of the action took place in the Swing Door Saloon, though the town also boasted a Sheriff’s office, jailhouse, barber shop, undertakers and a blacksmith.

Tucked away on BBC 2, the show pulled in a respectable audience of over five million viewers but was cancelled after its lone six-episode block.

The outdoor set for the Apache Wells cowboy town was constructed in Crowden, near the Peak District’s Laddow Rocks.

Percy (“Jesse”) James
Kenneth Cope
Isobel James
Anne Carroll
Betty James
Debbie Arnold
Tom Henderson
John Normington
Rita Henderson
Shirley Stelfox
Eli “Curly” Ackersley
Joe Gladwin
The Wythenshawe Kid (Henry ‘Hank’ Price)
Gordon Rollings
Butch (Cyril Llewelyn Jones)
Robert Owen
Jim Turnbull
Philip Goodhew
Bert
Mike Walling
Clem
Jack Lonsdale
Brett
Paul Lowther
Billy
David McEwan
Chesterfield Comancheros
Gareth Jones
Craig Hunter
Bob Appleby
Paul Ashby
Larry Barnes
John Caesar
Barry Gaskell

Episodes

Episodes

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