Parsley Sidings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Parsley Sidings was a BBC Radio sitcom created by Jim Eldridge and with actors Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavender and who were starring in the television war sitcom Dad's Army at the time of broadcast, as well as Kenneth Connor of Carry On fame.
The scripts were Jim Eldridge's (who would later go on to write for many more series, the most successful being the BBC's King Street Junior) first, and are set in a sleepy out of the way railway station on the line between London and Birmingham, in the Midlands. The main characters are Mr Horace Hepplewhite (Arthur Lowe), the station master, his son Bertrand Hepplewhite (Ian Lavender), Percy Valentine (Kenneth Connor) the porter, Mr Bradshaw the signalman and the secretary Gloria Simpkins (Liz Fraser, also from Carry On and the Dad's Army feature film). Guest actors included Bill Pertwee and Roger Delgado.
The series was produced by Edward Taylor and broadcast on BBC Radio 2. Due the BBC's former practice of wiping tapes after the broadcast of a show, or not recording it to tape at all, only a minority of the twenty one episodes produced are still in their archives [1] - Goodbye, Parsley Sidings and The Entente Cordial are aired on BBC 7 occasionally and have always remained in the BBC archive, while A Night Out, A Bird in the Hand, The New Level Crossing and The Secret Agent were recovered between 2001 and 2003 as off-air recordings from members of the public. These episodes have also been aired in early 2007 on the same channel. Other episodes are known to exist in private hands.
[edit] Episodes
| Series 1 | |||
| Title | Recorded | First broadcast | |
| Pilot | Unknown | 1971-02-28 | |
| The Market Special | Unknown | 1971-12-05 | |
| The Postal Express | Unknown | 1971-12-12 | |
| The Beauty Queen Contest | Unknown | 1971-12-19 | |
| The Inspector Calls | Unknown | 1971-12-31 | |
| The 1890 Rocket | Unknown | 1971-01-02 | |
| The Excursion | Unknown | 1971-01-09 | |
| Cricket, Lovely Cricket | Unknown | 1971-01-16 | |
| Who'll Be Mother? | Unknown | 1971-01-23 | |
| The Concert | Unknown | 1971-01-30 | |
| Goodbye, Parsley Sidings | Unknown | 1971-02-06 | |
| Series 2 | |||
| Title | Recorded | First broadcast | |
| Pass The Parcel | Unknown | 1973-09-29 | |
| The Flower Show | Unknown | 1973-10-06 | |
| The Entente Cordial | Unknown | 1973-10-13 | |
| A Night Out | Unknown | 1973-10-20 | |
| The Goods Train | Unknown | 1973-10-27 | |
| A Bird In The Hand | Unknown | 1973-11-03 | |
| The Purity League | Unknown | 1973-11-10 | |
| The New Level Crossing | Unknown | 1973-11-17 | |
| The Film Makers | Unknown | 1973-11-24 | |
| The Secret Agent | Unknown | 1973-12-01 | |
