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
Arthur Fowler own London family and background. Arthur's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, "EastEnders: The Inside Story". Bill Treacher was the first actor Holland and Smith had thought of to play the character, in fact, Arthur had almost been invented with him in mind. Both had worked with Treacher before on the popular BBC drama "Z-Cars". His qualities as an actor were exactly the ones they wanted for the "very difficult" part of Arthur: "Warmth, directness and an ability to be convincingly ordinary without being dull". Treacher admitted in 2015