Geoffrey Wheeler Cutaways in the Blue Peter Books

Geoffrey Wheeler Cutaways in Blue Peter BooksCompiled by Jeremy Briggs
Geoffrey Edmund John Wheeler was born in Penn, Buckinghamshire on 12 August 1929. After school he joined the Great Western Railway in January 1945 and later saw service in the Royal Navy serving onboard a number of ships including HMS Amethyst, a frigate remembered for being captured by Communist Chinese forces in 1949 in what

William "Tim" Timym in the Blue Peter Books

William “Tim” Timym In The Blue Peter BooksCompiled by Jeremy Briggs
William 'Tim' Timym's Bleep and Booster characters featured in the first fourteen Blue Peter books in 4 page illustrated text stories, one per book. While Bleep and Booster may be Timym's best remembered characters the annual Blue Peter Books, published to tie in with the BBC children's television series, featured more of his

Bleep and Booster

BLEEP AND BOOSTERby Jeremy Briggs
The adventures of the robot-like alien Bleep and the human boy Booster were created by Austrian artist William Timym, credited as "Tim", for the BBC children's magazine programme Blue Peter around 1963. In addition to their animated adventures on screen they also appeared in stories, all credited to Tim, in their own annuals and storybooks as well as the annual

Honey West

News of the death of actress Anne Francis on 2 January at the age of 80 inspired me to dig around the shelves to find the few Honey West novels I have. Honey West was one of the first female private eyes to appear on TV, based on a series of novels by G. G. Fickling, the pen-name of husband and wife team Gloria G. (1926- ) and Forrest Ellison 'Skip' Fickling (1925-1998).

The first novel was

TV Tie-ins: The New Avengers

A follow-up to the Avengers cover gallery from the other day.

The New Avengers 1: House of Cards by Peter Cave
Futura 08600-7472-2, 1976, 160pp, 55p. Cover: photo [FC: Patrick Macnee, Joanna Lumley]
House of Cards...
Codename for a terrifying game of espionage; twelve 'sleeping' Russian agents conditioned by narco-hypnosis to live for years as normal English citizens, unless they receive a torn

TV Tie-ins: The Avengers

The archetypal sixties secret agent show, The Avengers has the unique distinction of being the only British programme ever to get a prime time slot on American network television. The overwhelming international success of its later years tends to overshadow its relatively humble beginnings as a largely studio-bound show shot on videotape, at which point the storylines were confined to the

TV Tie-ins: The Invaders

In The Invaders, architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes) is the only man on the planet to witness the arrival of aliens and then spends 43 episodes trying to uncover their various plans to take over the planet. The aliens in human form have infiltrated the authorities and industry and Vincent has to try and convince sceptics that the invasion has already begun.

This was a fast-moving, fairly

TV Tie-ins: Z Cars

Z Cars was one of the longest running police dramas of British television history, running (with breaks) from January 1962 until September 1978. Its northern setting, a fictional town in the Merseyside area, allowed for some gritty, kitchen-sink drama to be played out over the show's 799 episodes.

The show was created by Troy Kennedy Martin and early writers included Martin, Allan Prior, John

TV Tie-ins: Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green by Rex Edwards
Pan 0330-23870-1, 1974, 165pp, 35p. Cover photo by John Green
Severn House 07278-0143-0, 1976, 165pp, £2.95 (h/c). Cover photo by John Green
The police were nobody's pin-up in Dock Green, a zestful, colourful ever-changing slice of East London.
__But, despite the increasing hazards of their job, men like George Dixon, Andy Crawford and 'Laudie' Lauderdale were

TV Tie-ins: The Two Ronnies redux

A couple of novelisations featuring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

Open All Hours by Christine Sparks
BBC 0563-17924-4, 1981, 159pp, £1.25.
Granville looked down at his short, undistinguished person, wrapped round in a large white pinny. Here he was, a young man in his twenties, already at work in the shop at six-thirty in the morning. What did the future hold for him? A continuing

TV Tie-ins: Squadron

Based on the 10-part BBC TV series created and written by Alastair Balfour and Peter May, with Norman Crisp, Ken Clarke, Mervyn Haisman, Adrian Reid and Ray Thompson. Produced by Joe Walters, the series starred Michael Culver, Malcolm Stoddard, Alan Hunter, Derek Anders, Richard Simpson, Catriona MacColl and Carl Rigg. IMDB.

Squadron by Norman Ross
Coronet 0340-32050-8, 1982, 188pp, £1.50. Cover

TV Tie-ins: The Persuaders

The Persuaders! was compulsive viewing for me when I was a kid. It had—still has—one of the finest theme tunes ever composed for a TV series (the Thunderbirds theme being my other favourite) and genuinely exotic locations, unlike, say, The Champions, which had a couple of establishing shots and then cut to a studio or bits of Hertfordshire. It was like James Bond on the tele... and by the time

TV Tie-ins cover gallery 5

Skis Against the Atom by Knut Haukelid (Kampen om tungrvannet (Bergen, J. W. Elde, 1953), translated by F. H. Lyon, London, William Kimber, 1954; revised, Fontana, 1973)
Fontana 3148, 1973, 160pp, 30p.
On a bitter January night in 1943 an R.A.F. bomber crossed the coast of Norway. On board was a group of young Norwegian partisans. Their mission—to destroy one of the most important military

TV Tie-ins: No Bananas

No Bananas was produced by Peter Norris for BBC Television in association with BBC Worldwide. The series was created and written by Ginnie Hole and ran for 10 episodes broadcast between May and July 1996. The episodes were directed by Alan Dosser, Roger Bamford, Moira Armstrong and Robert Tronson . The cast included Alison Steadman, Michael Elwyn, Rachel Power, Tim Matthews, Stephanie Beacham,

TV Tie-ins: We'll Meet Again

We'll Meet Again was created by David Butler for London Weekend Television and starred Susannah York as Helen Dereham and Michael J. Shannon as Major Jim Kiley, with Lou Hirsch, Patrick O'Connell, Carolyn Pickles, James Saxon, June Barry, Lynne Pearson and Ray Smith. Produced by Tony Wharmby with scripts by Butler, David Crane (who was also script editor) and John Gorrie. The series ran for 13

TV Tie-ins: The Spoils of War

The Spoils of War was John Finch's follow-up to A Family at War, set in the Lake District village of Whitstanton  with two families of different social classes—the working class Haywards and the wealthy Warringtons—central to the storyline.

The show was originally broadcast on Granada between 27 January and 9 March 1980 and was followed by two further series (25 July to 29 August 1980, 30 June

TV Tie-ins: A Family at War

A Family at War was an astonishing achievement for Granada television, running a total of 52 episodes over three seasons (of 13, 19 and 20 episodes) in 1970-72. The saga of the Ashton family, which attracted up to 25 million viewers, knocking Coronation Street and Morecambe and Wise off the top of the ratings, was created by John Finch, a former scriptwriter and script editor on Coronation

TV Tie-ins: 'Allo 'Allo

As we began the week with Secret Army it seems only fitting to end the week with a show that spoofed the series.

One of the longest-running British comedy shows which continued to be successful on the stage (with many of the original cast appearing) after it had finished a 10-year television run. Also popular abroad, it broke away from the usual short series format with the 26 episodes of series

TV Tie-ins: Enemy at the Door

Enemy at the Door by James Andrew Hall (published simultaneously, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1979)
Futura 07088-1377-1, 1979, 187pp, 75p.
Based on scripts by Michael Chapman and Kenneth Clark.
For five years during World War Two, Germany ruled the Channel Islands. It was the only time since 1066 that British soil had been occupied by a foreign power.
__The next step was to have been the

TV Tie-ins: Secret Army

Secret Army was based on true stories of Allied airmen downed over Europe who were aided by local resistance operatives to make their way through France, Holland and Belgium and to escape back to England. John Brason, in his introduction to the first Secret Army novelisation, says, "It is a matter of record that the evasion lines returned over three thousand Allied Air Forces personnel to the UK,