The Liver Birds and Series 1 starred Pauline Collins as Dawn and Polly James as Beryl Hennessey. In Series 2, Nerys Hughes debuted as Sandra Hutchinson, replacing Dawn for the rest of the programme's run. The Beryl-and-Sandra pairing is generally regarded as the programme's best period. Beryl was the more 'common' one, while Sandra was soft-spoken and more refined, due to the influence of her snobbish, overbearing mother (Mollie Sugden). Carla Lane drew on her own mother for the character – "Mrs Hutchinson, I think she was my mother. I'm sure she was my mother". Beryl's 'common' mother (the Hennesseys live in Bootle,
Nerys Hughes Hobbs Bursary. One of Hughes's early dramatic roles was in Ken Loach's television series titled "Diary of a Young Man" in 1964. She is best known for the role of Sandra Hutchinson in the enormously successful BBC TV series "The Liver Birds" which ran from 1969 to 1978 with a brief revival in 1996. Her main co-stars were Mollie Sugden and Polly James. She later played the eponymous lead in "The District Nurse", a series which was written for her, and won the Variety Club Television Actress of the Year Award. The series was released on DVD in 2006. She