“Radio Times”, issue date 30^th December 1965, introduces the new programme:

Postscript

The series took its title from the proverb “Softly, softly, catchee monkey”, which was the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School. The original brief on the inauguration of the Regional Crime Squads is: ‘To investigate the criminal and not the crime.

“Softly, Softly” suffered from the BBC’s lack of a proper archiving policy until 1978. Many episodes of the first two series were live (although film recorded for overseas sales): other episodes and all the the later series were recorded on Videotape, and it was BBC policy before 1978 to wipe master tapes and reuse them for other programmes, hence saving money and storage space. Eighty-six episodes are thought to no longer exist, and only five episodes are known to exist – although some might still exist as film recordings stored in overseas archive vaults.

David Brunt has provided a chronology of the first two series of “Softly, Softly” based on the BBC’s daily programme broadcast logs, which are very comprehensive.

Season 1

Live Episodes

Episode	Title	Tx Date
2	A Local Touch	1966-01-12
3	The Misinformer	1966-01-19
4	It Doesn’t Grow on Trees	1966-01-26
6	Screws and Drivers	1966-02-09
8	Over Take…	1966-02-23
9	Don’t Push Too Hard	1966-03-02
10	The Key	1966-03-09
11	Tickle on Wheels	1966-03-16
12	A Spot of Leave	1966-03-23
16	Do You Believe in Ghosts?	1966-04-20
17	There’s a Lot of It About	1966-04-27
18	The Gentle Touch	1966-05-04
19	The Short Cut	1966-05-11
20	Made in Britain	1966-05-18
21	Round Trip	1966-05-25
22	Extraction	1966-06-01
23	Best Out of Three	1966-06-08
24	I Know What I Said	1966-06-15
25	Conspiracy (1) To Rob	1966-06-22
26	Conspiracy (2) To Corrupt	1966-06-29

Recorded Episodes

Episode	Title	Record Date	Tx Date
1	Off Beat	1966-01-04	1966-01-05
5	Talk to Me	1965-11-16*	1966-02-02
7	Take Over	1966-02-02	1966-02-16
13	A – Z	1965-12-01	1966-03-30
14	Blind Man’s Bluff	1966-03-30	1966-04-06
15	All the Flowers	1966-04-12	1966-04-13

* Recorded as a test run on a day usually used for a “Z-Cars” production.

 

“Radio Times”,  issue dated 29^th October 1966, introduces the second season

Season 2

Live Episodes

Episode	Title	Tx Date
1	Inside Out	1966-11-02
5	Sleeping Dogs	1966-11-30
8	Barlow Was There (1) Allegation	1966-12-21
10	Barlow Was There (3) Mischief	1967-01-04
12	James McNeil, Aged 23	1967-01-18
16	Somebody Important	1967-02-15
19	The Same the Whole World Over	1967-03-08
21	Appointment in Wyvern	1967-03-22
22	The Investors	1967-03-29
23	A Piece of Waste Ground	1967-04-05
24	Proof Positive	1967-04-12
26	On the Side of the Law	1967-04-26
27	The Linkman	1967-05-03

Recorded Episodes

Episode	Title	Record Date	Tx Date
2	All That Glitters	1966-10-05	1966-11-09
3	The Jackpot	1966-10-12	1966-11-16
4	Murder Reported	1966-10-19	1966-11-23
6	Heart of Brass	1966-11-16	1966-12-07
7	Find the Lady	1966-11-09	1966-12-14
9	Barlow Was There (2) Enquiry*	1966-12-14	1966-12-28
11	Sing a Song of Friendship	1966-12-07	1967-01-11
13	The Next Voice You Hear	1966-11-23	1967-01-25
14	An Eye for an Eye	1967-01-25	1967-02-01
15	What Colour a Wolf?	1967-01-11	1967-02-08
17	The Informant (1) Rough Justice	1967-02-01	1967-02-22
18	The Informant (2) The Man Inside	1967-02-08	1967-03-01
20	Selection	1967-02-22	1967-03-15
25	Cash on Deliverance	1967-03-01	1967-04-19
28	Blackitt’s Round	1967-04-19	1967-05-10
29	See You Tomorrow	1967-03-15	1967-05-17
30	The Hole (1) In the Road	1967-05-11	1967-05-24
31	The Hole (2) In the Head	1967-05-17	1967-05-31

* Episode 9 was pre-recorded – and out-of-sequence – as otherwise rehearsals would take place all over Christmas for a live transmission on 28^th December. Episodes 8 and 10 were both live.

 

Series 3 onwards

From Series 3 onwards the episodes were pre-recorded onto quad 2” tape. The Telerecording was started at exactly the same time that a previous week’s recording was being transmitted, and it was recorded “as live” – the programme episode would continue straight through no matter what happened, and if the producer and director were happy, and the recording was OK, that was it. Sometimes, as with the live episodes, there would be re-takes for BBC Enterprises – sale abroad -but this would be an edit on the quad 2” tape, and it may be BBC Enterprises would pay to cut-edit the tape, although usually at this time it was a charge against the programme.

Series 5 Episode 4 “Error of Judgment” was shot completely on film.

 

The Real Crew 7

This account of going live with “Softly, Softly” does not name the crew members, since there was no possible way of tying up the various graphics with the real people. Crew 7 really did exist, and these are the crew members at the time. Although please bear in mind that there were often changes within the crews, as members were sent on other assignments or for training.

Camera Crew 7 1966

Terry Foote found a staff list from 1967

Acknowledgements

A great debt of gratitude is owed to all those Technical Operators who contributed words and pictures to the BBC Tech Ops Website http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/next/

My thanks in particular go to those who reviewed the drafts of this material:

      

Principal reviewer: (and editorial help)	Dudley Darby
Reviewers:	Barry Bonner
	John Howell (Hibou)
	Bernie Newnham

Thanks, too, to David Brunt for the chronology of the first two series of “Softly, Softly”.

Alec Bray

December 2023 version 2.0