Dixon of Dock Green

[Nearly Sane]

Evening all!

Jack Warner was born on this day in 1895. By the time he appeared, Lazarus like, in Dixon of Dock Green, he was 60. When he eventually hung up his helmet, he was 81. I remember watching it, if not with huge enthusiasm, at least with no struggle.

It had become an anachronism with police having moved into Z Cars and Task Forces, and as Dixon left, into the Sweeney. That Warner's birthday is shared by Ronnie and Reggie Kray is piquant. They are as fictional now as he was. Yet I suspect even now Dixon is closer to most police's experience on a day to day level than many other dramas 

It seems incredible that only 32 out of 432 episodes survive. Even the second last series made in 1975 is over half missing. The fictional returns in Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes nod in recognition on occasion, and end with reference to George Dixon.

https://youtu.be/QnWVFmAo_Vk?si=2IEsS4Qonfl0KuU_

[Steve H]

I remember back in the 90s there was talk of DoDG being revived, with the central character being DI George Dixon, grandson of the original. Unfortunately, it never happened.

[Gordon]

I remember it from my childhood - i think it was on just after the football results were read late on Saturday afternoon - in glorious black and white.

What I remember most though is the theme tune featuring the harmonica as the lead instrument - very memorable it was: I can still whistle it (badly) 60 odd years after I first heard it.

[Nearly Sane]

I remember back in the 90s there was talk of DoDG being revived, with the central character being DI George Dixon, grandson of the original. Unfortunately, it never happened.

To an extent, The Bill might be seen as an updated version without the concentration on one specific copper. There was some talk of keeping it on after Warner retired but just calling it Dock Green since obviously losing the eponymous character would demand that. At that stage we were years before Taggart started.

[Nearly Sane]

I remember it from my childhood - i think it was on just after the football results were read late on Saturday afternoon - in glorious black and white.

What I remember most though is the theme tune featuring the harmonica as the lead instrument - very memorable it was: I can still whistle it (badly) 60 odd years after I first heard it.

The link in the OP is to an extended version of the theme. It's extraordinary how evocative such things can be. I can't hear Chopin or Jim Reeves without smelling furniture polish as it is what my mother played on the 'radiogram' when she was cleaning the house on Wednesday half closing day.

[Gordon]

The 'radiogram' takes me back too - with a record deck behind a wee door in the middle and vertical slots for 'LP's' to be stored. What I remember most through is the radio bit, where it had the names of European cities printed in gold lettering on a glass panel so that it could be tuned to these 'exotic' places - I remember there was Helsinki, Munich and Athens. No idea where it could actually pick up signals from these places. I think it must have had valves in it, since I remember the 'electric' smell when it was turned on mixed with, as NS notes, furniture polish.

   

[Nearly Sane]

The 'radiogram' takes me back too - with a record deck behind a wee door in the middle and vertical slots for 'LP's' to be stored. What I remember most through is the radio bit, where it had the names of European cities printed in gold lettering on a glass panel so that it could be tuned to these 'exotic' places - I remember there was Helsinki, Munich and Athens. No idea where it could actually pick up signals from these places. I think it must have had valves in it, since I remember the 'electric' smell when it was turned on mixed with, as NS notes, furniture polish.

   

Hilversum, where art thou?

When we got a 'music centre' in the late 70s, I had the 'radiogram' moved into my bedroom, and removed the legs, and used to lie on the floor, my head midway between the speakers, to experience stereo. I remember the effect of steps 'walking across' my head , listening to this.

https://youtu.be/lOf-0Mur7t4?si=0JzKMAG1fvSe2obL


Of course, I think that although a radiogram was the music centre of its day as opposed to the gramophone, I immediately flash to this.

https://youtu.be/dSINO6MKtco?si=aH5fHWN5LkpDrU7I

[Steve H]

Hilversum, where art thou?

Indeed - it was ubiquitous on radio dials, but never heard of in any other context.

[Nearly Sane]

Indeed - it was ubiquitous on radio dials, but never heard of in any other context.

Smells Like Furniture Polish

[Gordon]

That's it!

That is exactly what I remember.

[Nearly Sane]

I was reminded that Jack Warner was actually Jack Waters, and brother of Elsie and Doris Waters who created the comedy characters of Gert and Daisy. I don't remember seeing them perform, and it's the sort of trivia that I suspect was mentioned when Warner had his blue lamp finally extinguished in both fiction and real life.

The wiki entry for them is a treat, and reads like fiction. It connects with my OP in that apparently the Krays were referred to as Gert and Daisy on occasion. The section on their personal lives is superb: 'The sisters never married, and lived together in Steyning, Sussex, from the 1930s until their deaths. It was widely understood that Doris Waters had been in a relationship with a diplomat in the 1930s, but after he was posted abroad the sisters agreed to stay together, for professional reasons and to aid the war effort. Attempts in the 1980s to present stage versions of the sisters' lives foundered because of Elsie's refusal to allow any mention of their brother Jack, or of rumours of the sisters' relationships with the same man.'
The comedic effect of 'Steyning, Sussex' would be top level writing as fiction.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_and_Doris_Waters