During lockdown I went back to my favourite go-to TV show and watched all 57 episodes again from start to finish. When we got eased a bit in July I thought I'd go and have a scout out for some of the filming locations, and the results are here with my Fabia standing in for the CI5 Fords wherever possible! I shan't put any of them without the car up as that might be stretching the point, but I've now got about 5 days out mapped and ready to go before we even think about going into London.

 

Lutman's Haven is a little side road that was used for a shot of Bodie and Doyle heading to a motorcycle scramble in the episode Wild Justice...

 

 

 

Just around the corner from this spot is the old Seven Stars pub in Knowl Hill, where the bikers met in the same episode, Wild Justice, before going off to the competition. It's now a private residence.

 

 

 

One of my all-time favourite episodes is Blackout, where a girl with amnesia may have information to help prevent a terrorist attack. They take her to a 'hospital' which was - and remains - the Holiday Inn at Maidenhead!

 

 

 

In the same episode, Blackout, the CI5 boys take the girl on a road trip to see if anything triggers memories about the planned terrorist attack. They stop at a little garage for ice creams and innuendo. Fuel pumps have gone and a dealership is on the property now.

 

 

 

About half a mile away in the village itself, the girl in Blackout lets out a squeak and they stop. She remembers the timbered house on the green. Makes things easier to spot!

 

 

 

And the last one with the Fabia for now, at the end of the episode 'Foxhole on the Roof' they discover that there has been a 'Mr. Big' involved in the plot to hold a hospital to ransom. Doyle goes off to raid his house, which is on a farm near Fairoaks airfield...

 

 

 

Yes, it's probably a bit batty. I should probably limit my emissions and stay at home. But these lovely spots were all within a few miles of where I live and I've done less than a third of my annual mileage this year! Hope you like them, anyway.

Kudos 

 

I drove up to Scotland in the early noughties for hols, but also to find some of the places they filmed one of my favourite films, Local Hero.  Due to a complete lack of research or planning, I failed miserably   (Fab holiday though).

 

Gaz

 

Thank you!

 

I find it intriguing to see how places change (or don't). I've been to almost all of the pubs used in Inspector Morse over the years as well. 

 

My Dad and I used to go on road trips to find WW2 airfields or places of interest - all round where the Great Train Robbery took place and so on. My friend inspired me as he's got a forum for Seventies TV and they go off on tours for anything from The Sweeney (most popular!) to On The Buses. Usually half of them are in fancy dress and/or have appropriate transport.

 

When they went to the block of flats used as Regan's home in the Sweeney for the first time the lady living there apparently came back home with her shopping to find a dozen men in flares and a couple of Ford Consuls outside. "Oh, you'd better come in I'll put the kettle on," said she.

 

With The Professionals I think it would take two full days in summer to go to everywhere around Oxford, Aylesbury, St. Albans, Reading, Maidenhead, Henley and Windsor that was used. Most of that was the first series because after that they moved camp closer to London, a lot round Enfield, Wembley, Highgate and Crouch End.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Pacific_Blue said:

When they went to the block of flats used as Regan's home in the Sweeney for the first time the lady living there apparently came back home with her shopping to find a dozen men in flares and a couple of Ford Consuls outside. "Oh, you'd better come in I'll put the kettle on," said she.

 

That gave me the biggest laugh for a very long time!

 

Keep the photos coming please!

 

I watch the Sweeney and marvel at all the derelict & run down London (presumably) locations they had in those days to film in, they will all be gentrified & unrecognisable now.

 

Did you notice how much the trees had grown in the various photos? Obvious really but I recently visited the council estate where I lived from 1967 & from where I have most of my childhood memories, it was a new estate and had saplings planted, now they are massive mature trees where the upper foliage meets those the other side of the road and the overall impression now is that the trees have taken over and in most places you cannot even see the sky line.

 

It could be that they have cut back on the pruning & maintenance in recent years.

7 minutes ago, J.R. said:

I watch the Sweeney and marvel at all the derelict & run down London (presumably) locations they had in those days to film in, they will all be gentrified & unrecognisable now.

 

Did you notice how much the trees had grown in the various photos? Obvious really but I recently visited the council estate where I lived from 1967 & from where I have most of my childhood memories, it was a new estate and had saplings planted, now they are massive mature trees where the upper foliage meets those the other side of the road and the overall impression now is that the trees have taken over and in most places you cannot even see the sky line.

 

Glad you enjoy them!

 

Yes, the foliage has been interesting. A lot of the places I've been to so far have all been preserved pretty well intact but it is the thing that can make you need a second or third look to make sure it's the right spot.

 

And the mean streets of London - don't even start me! Remember how everyone laughed at Prince Charles when he said London was potentially going to become unrecognisable and full of 'carbuncles'? Wasn't far wrong, was he? It's like downtown Dubai these days.

 

I was amazed that the site of the Silvertown explosion in 1917 was finally being developed a couple of years back. Because of any number of reasons (not least probably the residue of having an entire munitions factory explode), the area had just been left for 100 years and was one of the locations used in Ashes to Ashes, the pastiche/tribute to shows of the era, to recreate the docklands area as it was in 1981. Now the Qataris are building a 'village' of glass and steel tower blocks on it.

 

When the BBC filmed Ashes to Ashes, the biggest part of the budget was on CGI to remove various modern tower buildings from almost every exterior shot.

 

A lot of the East London locations used in later series of The Professionals were previously used in The Sweeney. I think these things passed around quite a bit then as they do today. I rented a cottage in Oxfordshire for a year or so, turned out that at least three episodes of Midsomer Murders had been filmed there!

 

I'll happily put other then-and-now pics up if there's interest but I'm afraid they're a bit light on Skodas!

Yes, please do, also any of the airfields, industrial sites & riverside locations etc although I doubt any of the latter remain recognisable.

 

Its the high street scenes which shock me, instantly recognisable yet could be from another planet today, the scrapyard scenes also.

 

Whenever a MKII or MK10 Jaguar was shown you knew that it would end in a crash on wasteland or a crushing in a scrapyard!

@Gaz_ i lived and grew up near Pennan where the phone box was. The Ship Inn is in Banff.

The thing is the beach is on the West coast of Scotland at Camusdarach.

18 minutes ago, e-Roottoot said:

@Gaz_ i lived and grew up near Pennan where the phone box was. The Ship Inn is in Banff.

The thing is the beach is on the West coast of Scotland at Camusdarach.

 

Cheers George 

 

Me, Wifey and kids stayed in Acharacle and went up as far as Arisaig, but no further - so close, yet so far! (to one bit at least)  Sounds like I need to make a return trip 

 

Gaz

 

@Gaz_If you get the change to watch the Drama Stonemouth that is a real mixture with the filming done at Macduff & that being near the Forth Bridges and then some of Macduff is Gourock.

The very first episode of The Professionals begins at a reservoir, where a secretary with a secret drug habit gives the keys to the company coffee machine to a deranged scientist so that he can poison everyone. The 'reservoir' was in fact the Thorpe Park waterski lakes, and the building in question was the original clubhouse. It's still there - just, but if we have a bad winter I can see it just dropping where it stands!

 

 

 

The coffee machine poisoning, carried out by the deranged scientist (played by Keith Barron, better known for things like Duty Free and Benidorm), was a dry run. His intention was to poison the reservoir itself, putting a bomb laced with the poison in the reservoir under a waterski ramp.

 

I've marked the position roughly of where the ramp was, and was amazed to see that there is still one - very possibly the one - original old-fashioned ramp still out on the lake. The red circle marks the filming position as close as I can get it (you can see trucks on the M3 in the background) and the yellow circle is around the old ramp with the same perforations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, J.R. said:

Yes, please do, also any of the airfields, industrial sites & riverside locations etc although I doubt any of the latter remain recognisable.

 

Your wish is my command! This is Fairoaks airfield, which featured at the climax of the episode 'Fugitive'. I think this is roughly the spot where the aircraft was waiting, I've marked roughly the location in pink...

 

 

Fairoaks also appears as 'RAF Pirbright' in the episode Foxhole on the Roof. A new, modern hangar has been built across the route out onto the apron but the older buildings are still there. The circles match up...

 

 

Edited 3 December, 20204 yr by Pacific_Blue

The airfield which appeared most often was White Waltham, where the apron and the hangars were regularly the scene of illicit goings-on. The flying club has now been expanded out onto the apron upon which Rover P1 police cars, the CI5 Fords and the baddies' array of Cortinas and Jags would squeal, but the main hangars remain largely untouched.

 

 

 

I was thinking of visiting some of the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet locations next year as I'm close to where it was mostly filmed (It wasn't Düsseldorf)
I pass this block on a daily basis 
Where the blue mobile hut is is now a row of shops. The flats are on a busy 4 way junction.
 

Off topic but the blue mobile hut is what I have been doing up recently, I need 3 of them to store my stuff when the house sells in the UK (mainly my garage equipment) and I am collecting the last of them tomorrow.

 

The German ones with the curved roof are much better.

21 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Off topic but the blue mobile hut is what I have been doing up recently, I need 3 of them to store my stuff when the house sells in the UK (mainly my garage equipment) and I am collecting the last of them tomorrow.

 

The German ones with the curved roof are much better.

Often left unattended at the roadside   Mind you, 40Kph max towing limit I think so a swift getaway is unlikely without a flat-bed  

Edited 4 December, 20204 yr by Lee01

There was an old quarry that's actually just up behind the Seven Stars (see above), which was used as the venue for Bodie and Doyle's motorcycle scramble and, later on, as the training ground for a private army intent on taking over London. Today it's a recycling plant to which the contents of the green bins are taken, but what you can see through the gate looks quite recognisable...

 

 

I love the tenacity of the posters in this thread! Hats off to you.

 

Keep the pics coming 

7 hours ago, johanbrandon said:

the locations are attractive

One Professionals location not so attractive was Service Rd M in Watford, behind what was then the Abbey National and Leeds Permanent (there’s two names from the past!!) Building Societies offices.   Doubled for the rear exit of a night club.