Open All Hours Open All Hours Open All Hours is a British television sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. It ran for 26 episodes in four series, which premiered in 1976, 1981, 1982 and 1985. The programme developed from a television pilot broadcast in Ronnie Barker's comedy anthology series, "Seven of One" (1973). "Open All Hours" ranked eighth in the 2004 Britain's Best Sitcom poll. A sequel, entitled "Still Open All Hours", was created in 2013. The setting is a small grocer's shop in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The owner, Arkwright (Ronnie Barker), is a
Frances Barker & Son (1819–1875), the founder, was a practicing Christian and Freemason who formerly worked for James & George Simms, first as a child apprentice and then as a skilled precision mechanic and engraver. He later acquired J & G Simms, which traded between about 1822 and 1855 and build a reputation for finely engraved instrument dials and reticles. Barker used his considerable reputation as a skilled craftsman and those early social networks to establish his business. Frances Barker (1845–1920), the son of the founder of the same name, was one of eleven children. He married Elizabeth Weeks, whose father was a maker