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
Brian Blessed hail from Brigg. Blessed went to Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School and started drama training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. One of Blessed's earliest roles was that of PC "Fancy" Smith in the BBC television series "Z-Cars", between 1962 and 1965. In 1966, he appeared in a production of "Incident at Vichy" at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Also in 1966, he was offered the titular role of The Doctor in BBC's sci-fi drama, Doctor Who, to take over from William Hartnell, but had to turn down due to conflicting projects. In 1967, he played Porthos in