Softly, Softly

Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK. The series (which took its name from the proverb 'softly, softly, catchee monkey') was designed as a vehicle for Detective Chief Inspector Charles Barlow and Detective Inspector John Watt (played by Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor respectively) from the popular police series Z Cars, which had just finished its original run. Also joining them in the early series was Robert Keegan as Blackitt, the police station sergeant from Z-Cars, now retired and acting as a freelance helper. The series introduced characters like Sgt. Harry Hawkins (Norman Bowler) who would become very popular and well known. Promoted over the years to Detective Chief Inspector, Hawkins stayed with the show for its entire run.