Roger Bunce
For anyone as old and nostalgic as I am – the ‘Talking Pictures’ channel is about to start broadcasting “Colonel March of Scotland Yard” – ITV’s first detective series – starring Boris Karloff (with a black patch) as the head of office D3 – ‘The Department of Queer Complaints’ (N.B. no homophobia was involved in the making of this series! These were the days when ‘Queer’ meant ‘Strange’, and ‘Gay’ meant ‘Jolly’.)
I loved these programmes as a kid, with their sinister mysteries, and was frequently scared by them. I can still hum the signature tune. They are probably total rubbish, but I’m looking forward to finding out. The only problem is that they’re on early in the morning and, being HD only, I can’t record them. I didn’t retire in order to get out of bed early! – but I’ll have to make the effort.
Barry Bonner
I didn’t think D3 heads lasted that long!
Keith Wicks
Episodes are sometimes broadcast on London Live (Channel 8), and I doubt if those are in HD. Also, you’ll find some bits and pieces, perhaps even whole episodes, on YouTube. A guide to some episodes is on the Classic TV Archive here:
http://ctva.biz/UK/ColonelMarch.htm
By the way, they may have still been the days when, usually, ‘Queer’ meant ‘Strange’, and ‘Gay’ meant ‘Jolly’, but those words had also acquired sexual meanings by 1930.
Dave Buckley
‘Talking Pictures’ have been showing the “Colonel March of Scotland Yard” series on and off for some time -usually during afternoon.
It’s the shorts that they show between main films that I find interesting.
Peter Neill
I believe that ‘Talking Pictures’ is actually broadcast in SD. It’s true that you need an HD receiver, but I think that it’s just using a bit of spare space on an HD mux.
Confirmed on FB by Talking Pictures MD—it’s SD, so you might be able to record it after all.
Bill Jenkin
Yes but on Freeview, because it’s on the HD mux if your PVR isn’t HD I don’t think it will be set up to receive and record the HD mux at all (probably). I don’t know about Freesat, Virgin or that other unmentionable platform – unless you work for them of course, in which case jolly good.
Peter Neill
I’m guessing that Roger has a Freeview HD receiver, but an external recording device that will only record SD.
Roger Bunce
That’s about the size of it. My HD tele can receive the ‘Talking Pictures’ channel, but my SD recorder can’t see it at all. In this context, HD is probably a relative term, since most of the episodes only survive as 16mm prints.
Ian Norman
I have FreeSat and a couple of FTA satellite receivers that quite happily record any SD or HD ‘Free to Air’ transmissions.
‘Talking Pictures’ is just SD and fairly low bandwidth so not the best quality.
I already have some recordings of “Colonel March of Scotland Yard” from previous transmissions. Each episode is about 380Mb
Roger Bunce
In fact all the episodes of Colonel March are available for streaming on Amazon prime – but it’s just not the same as watching them when transmitted. The one way of ensuring that you never watch a programme is by buying yourself the boxed set!
Nick Ware
So true! I’ve long thought boxed sets are just for selling. When clearing my father-in-law’s house last Autumn, we couldn’t even give away the countless Reader’s Digest and other LP sets, plus VHS and DVD TV series boxed sets that he’d hoarded. Most of them still in their sealed cellophane wrapping. Tragic, really, but after trying all the charities, recycling was the only option.
Bernie Newnham
“Colonel March of Scotland Yard” is there and recordable on Virgin.
I fiddled around for some time trying to get ‘Talking Pictures’ on my computer using a USB tuner stick. Eventually it clicked – it’s on the HD multiplexer, so even though it’s SD I couldn’t get it on my five year old stick. £20 got me a new one, but it was another problem to get the software I already had to see it.
After much downloading and testing it turned out DVB Viewer Pro was the best thing. It costs €20 which I haven’t quite got round to paying yet, as they have a trial which I’m playing with. It assures me that if I pay, I’ll be able to record too.
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Nick Ware
If it’s viewable on your PC, do you folk know about "Icecream Screen Recorder"? I think the freebie version limits you to 10 mins recording time, but the paid version removes that limit. Downloads any area of the screen you care to highlight, or full screen, as a *.webm file, which you can then convert to your preferred format with "Any Video Converter". Again, there’s a pro version of that which opens up lots of other resolutions and ‘save-as’ format options.
Works with YouTube and any naughty websites, if you feel so inclined.
Dave Plowman
I suspect those “Colonel March of Scotland Yard” episodes were before ITV arrived in my neck of the woods when a kid, as I don’t remember them.
“Fabian of the Yard”, on the other hand…
Pat Heigham
Ah! “Fabian of the Yard”, starring Bruce Seton.
Opening titles had the old Police Wolseley with the bell on the front, hurtling around! How’s that for memory?
Here’s a pic, but dunno if it matches the TV series model.
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Ian Hillson
I would guess that it’s a genuine MetPol car rather than a film car – it has London reg of 1953.
Nick Ware
Those loudspeakers on the roof (presumably that’s what they are) must have been a bit of an aerodynamic disaster!
Geoff Fletcher
Periscopic binoculars for reading number plates at a distance!
Ian Hillson
Fabian’s vehicle was a Humber Hawk, I seem to recall.
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Keith Wicks
The introduction to “Fabian of Scotland Yar”d was:
"… In the nation’s war on crime, Scotland Yard is the brain of Great Britain’s man-hunting machine. Routine, detailed science and tenacity; these are the weapons used by squads of highly trained men. Men like former Superintendent Robert Fabian, hailed by the press as one of England’s greatest detectives!…"
David Brunt
Despite every episode of the series existing in various film archives around the world (Canada, mainly), the BBC currently only hold one episode of the show.
This one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70sxNZdZTa4
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Pat Heigham
The frame of the title seems to be more likely a Humber, but not very clear.
I do have a memory of a Wolseley with a bell – could it have been from ‘No Hiding Place’?
Ian Hillson
Could be …
or “The Blue Lamp” maybe …
Graeme Wall
Tell me when they get to “No Hiding Place”.
Dave Plowman
Wolseley was the standard Met police ‘squad car’ until sometime in the 1960s.
There was a myth they were ‘tuned up’. Quite the reverse. They had low compression engines so they could use the same petrol as the vans. (And maybe to make it less likely petrol would be pinched.)
Ian Dow
The car was a Wolseley as in the screen shot and I always looked out for it in other police shows and believe the registration was 892 FPC.
