British Television’s first twice weekly soap opera, Emergency Ward 10 began on 19 February 1957 and quickly made a name for itself, in fact at the time it was probably more popular than Casualty, Holby and The Royal all rolled into one and by the time it finished in 1967 it had notched up over a thousand episodes.
Set in Oxbridge General Hospital and following not just the professional lives of the doctors and nurses but also their personal lives too (in fact in 1964 the show created a TV first with the first inter-racial screen kiss when Dr Giles Farmer (John White) and surgeon Louise Mahler (Joan Hooley) started an affair.
Many of the early episodes went out live and like so many other vintage shows not every episode of the series remains in the archive.
Important characters included:- ROSEMARY MILLER as Nurse Pat Roberts / JILL BROWNE as Nurse Carole Young / ELIZABETH KENTISH as Sister Crowley / IRIS RUSSELL as Nurse Stevenson / RICHARD THORP as Dr John Rennie / JOHN ALDERTON as Dr Richard Moone / PAUL DARROW as Mr Verity / CHARLES TINGWELL as Dr Alan Dawson / GLYN OWEN as Dr Patrick O’Meara / DANDY NICHOLS as Mrs Hill / FREDERICK BARTMAN as Simon Forrester / WILLIAM WILDE as Dr Brooke / NOEL COLEMAN as Dr Richmond / DESMOND CARRINGTON as Chris Anderson
Creator: Tessa Diamond / Idea: Bill Ward / Producers: Anthony Kearey, John Cooper, Josephine Douglas
UK / ITV – ATV / 966×30 minutes 50×60 minutes / 1957-67 black and white
