Flashback: The Gentle Touch

The 1980s LWT police drama series starring Jill Gascoine as a high ranking female police officer who has to balance her personal career and home life following the murder of her husband. The series, alongside BBC drama Juliet Bravo, was one of the first to centre of a female police detective – something later dramas such as Prime Suspect would do too much acclaim.

Police dramas of the 1960s and 1970s focused on male characters who fought crime and won the day and there were a number of such dramas which portrayed these characters in different lights. Z-Cars for instance was a more normal, everyday type of police series featuring bobbies on the beat in the same way that The Bill would years later while The Sweeney was a far more hard hitting, action based series revolving around the “flying squad”. What these shows often lacked however, was a high ranking female character but then these shows weren’t aimed at the female audience and therefore often ignored the rise of females in the forces.

In 1980 however, all that changes as not one but two dramas launched that centred on high-ranking female detectives in the Police force. The first of these was LWT’S The Gentle Touch which was set in London and starred Jill Gascoine. The second was BBC drama Juliet Bravo which was set in Lancashire and starred Stephanie Turner, later Anna Carteret. Both shows chronicle the difficulties both women faced in the work place from their male colleagues and how they had to balance their work lives with their private lives.  In the case of The Gentle Touch actress Jill Gascoine played DI Maggie Forbes whose husband is killed in the opening episode in a failed robbery attempt. Her husband was also a police officer and attempted to stop the robbers and was shot in the course of his duty. This meant that Maggie had to balance her demanding job with bringing up her teenage son and dealing with her husband’s murder.

The series was created by Terence Feely who had previously written episodes for a wide range of programmes such as The New Avengers, Thunderbirds, The Persuaders, Within these Walls and Bergerac. The series wasn’t as action orientated as previous shows such as The Sweeney and was slower by comparison. Like Juliet Bravo it was more character driven and tackle issues of social change and topical subjects of racism, homosexuality and other topics like mental health and euthanasia. The format of the series was far more Police Procedural, like The Bill, than action or thriller as other such shows.

As Juliet Bravo and The Gentle Touch has similar premises and would inevitable cover the same sort of issues the production teams of both dramas would secretly contact each other to make sure they didn’t have too similar storylines. Such contact between production teams of rival shows was frowned upon by officials at their broadcasters but it happened never-the-less. The two shows would alter storylines or planned episodes if they discovered the other drama was planning to cover a similar topic matter. Together both shows marked a change in the public perception of female officers in the forces and marked a shift in television’s attitude towards female detectives as well. They paved the way for later dramas which focused on high ranking females in far more depth than either show did – such as Prime Suspect. Before the arrival of both dramas the public’s perception of the police had been driven by the likes of Z-Cars, Softly Softly and The Sweeney which focused on maverick males who were married to the force. These mavericks would bend or break the rules but ultimately their actions would pay off and the bad guy would be caught. Juliet Bravo and The Gentle Touch however, took a completely different approach to the forces and concentrated on how their respective female characters approached their work in a more sympathetic, softer approach. When The Bill launched in 1984 the fact there were prominent female characters within the cast – and as the years went on in high ranking roles such as Inspector and DCI – can be attributed to the ground breaking path laid down by The Gentle Touch and Juliet Bravo.

Starring alongside Jill Gascoine in the series were William Marlowe, Derek Thompson, Brian Gwaspari, Paul Moriarty, Nigel Rathbone, Kevin O’Shea, Bernard Holley, James Ottaway and Michael Graham Cox. It was an early major role for actor Derek Thompson who in 1986 would be amongst the cast of BBC medical drama Casualty playing Charlie Fairhead – a role he still plays to this day. William Marlowe was known for his roles in The Legend of Robin Hood, A Family At War, Barlow at Large and several appearances in Doctor Who as separate characters. Bernard Holley had appeared in Z-Cars for four years so was no stranger to the police drama genre. The series also featured a number of high-profile guest-stars and actors who later went onto big things. In the first episode alone it’s possible to spot several familiar faces such as Stephen Yardley [Secret Army/Howards Way], Leslie Schofield [EastEnders/The Smoking Room], Brian Croucher [Blakes 7/EastEnders], Sue Nicholls [Crossroads/Coronation Street] and Peggy Aitchison [Crossroads]. Throughout the rest of the series other guest-stars included George Sewell [The Detectives/Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy], Ray Lonnen [Honey Lane/The Sandbaggers], Lesley Manville [The Cazalets/Cranford], Lynda Bellingham [General Hospital] and Gordon Kaye [Allo Allo] amongst others. Amongst the writers to contribute towards the series was Geoff McQueen who in 1983 would write the “one-off” drama Woodentop for ITV which proved to be so popular it was developed into a drama series; The Bill.

The series ran for five seasons between 1980 and 1984 with 56 episodes in all. Following the end of the series in 1984 Terence Feely created spin-off series C.A.T.S Eyes for Southern Television which starred Jill Gascoine once again in the role of Maggie Forbes. The spin-off series see’s Maggie Forbes join a Home Office department and starring alongside her in the series were Leslie Ash, Don Warrington, Tracy Louise Ward and Rosalyn Landor. Three seasons were produced between 1985 and 1987 with 31 episodes in all.

Following the conclusion of the spin-off Jill Gascoine published three novels and in the 1990s moved to America where she worked extensively on television and theatre. Seasons one and two of The Gentle Touch have been released on DVD with the third to follow this year. C.A.T.S Eyes hasn’t been released on DVD due to a dispute over rights issues.