Gazette (ITV 1968, Gerald Harper, Jon Laurimore)

In drama series Gazette, James Hadleigh gives up his job in government to return to his Yorkshire roots. His father, owner of a substantial estate, has recently died and left everything to James. Hadleigh also inherits a newspaper, The Westdale Gazette.

The editor of the paper is no-nonsense Frank Walters who has done much since his arrival to boost the paper’s circulation and the key reporters are Sue Jackson and Bill Spence. Initially Hadleigh and Walters have an antagonistic relationship having had a major falling out over a story about Hadleigh’s return run on the front page of The Gazette.

The series only lasted for one season before leading on directly to the very popular series Hadleigh which focused on the running of the Hadleigh estate rather than the newspaper. Gazette also wasn’t fully networked around the ITV regions airing just at the tail end of the era when the regions still did pretty much whatever they wanted when it came to programming. Always giving preferential treatment to their own shows and sometimes not bothering to even show series from other regions or not showing complete runs of shows.

Jon Laurimore as Frank Walters, The editor of the Westdale Gazette.

production details
UK / ITV – Yorkshire / 13×50 minute episodes / Broadcast 2 August – 25 October 1968 (Generally seen Fridays @ 9.00pm)

Creator: Robert Barr / Theme Music: Alan Moorhouse / Producer: Terence Williams

cast
GERALD HARPER as James Hadleigh
JON LAURIEMORE as Walters
GILLIAN WRAY as Sue Jackson
MICHAEL BLACKHAM as Bill Spence

THE EPISODES
1. ARRIVAL (2 Aug 68)
2. TURN A BLIND EYE (9 Aug 68)
3. EXPOSURE (16 Aug 68)
4. IT’S ALL HAPPENING (23 Aug 68)
5. MISSING (30 Aug 68)
6. BETWEEN THE LINES (6 Sep 68)
7. IN LOVING MEMORY (13 Sep 68)
8. THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME (20 Sep 68)
9. ANNOUNCEMENT (27 Sep 68)
10. WHY STAY IN WESTDALE (4 Oct 68)
11. STRANGER (11 Oct 68)
12. NOT FOR PUBLICATION (18 Oct 68)
13. THE CRITIC (25 Oct 68)

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