Happy 60th, Z Cars!
If my childhood had a theme tune, it was Johnny Todd. Don’t know it? Yes, you do. It was the Z Cars music.
The BBC detective series first beamed into our cold living rooms 60 years ago, on 2nd January 1962. Within two months, it drew in 14 million viewers. It went on to run for 801 episodes over 12 series.
Glasgow-born screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin conceived Z Cars while in bed with mumps. To stave off boredom, he listened to local police messages on his transistor. Why not, he thought, bring police to life on the small screen? Why not depict bobbies as real, flawed human beings, like us?
Police presence on TV, which had been running for seven years when revved up. In the title role, at the start of every show, avuncular Jack Warner looked straight at the camera and greeted viewers, saying, ‘Evening, all.’ We thought he was talking to us.
