Z-Cars Watt), James Ellis (Bert Lynch) and Brian Blessed ("Fancy" Smith). Barlow and Watt were later spun into a separate series "Softly, Softly". The title comes from the radio call signs allocated by Lancashire Constabulary. Lancashire police divisions were lettered from north to the south: "A" Division (based in Ulverston) was the detached part of Lancashire at the time around Barrow-in-Furness, "B" Division was Lancaster, and so on. Letters further into the alphabet were in the south around the Manchester and Liverpool areas. (See also the Wikipedia page about Home Office radio.) The TV series took the non-existent signs Z-Victor 1
Z-Cars less likely to be recovered, as they were never telerecorded for a repeat or export.. When "Z-Cars" returned in 1967 in its 30-minute, twice-weekly format, it was on nearly every week of the year, which may account for its poor survival rate over this period. The 2 x 30-minute format gradually interchanged with the returning 50-minute format and when the 50-minute format fell into regular use by the series, this coincided with an increase in its survival rate. All episodes from the 1975–1978 period are preserved in the archives. BBC Archive Treasure Hunt was a drive to seek out missing