Denis Waterman dies and memories of TV cops

 Denis Waterman dies and memories of TV cops.

It wasn't all that long ago since we were singing the praises of those intrepid TV cops, the goodies chasing the baddies, the villains reluctantly admitting to their guilt before being pinned down by those heroic men and women in blue with a helmet on their heads and authority in their hands. These were the good, old days of British and American TV when police shows on TV were invariably accompanied by the wailing twos and blues, flashing lights on their Panda cars, furious coppers running full pelt down back streets and the comforting sound of the whistle as PC plod caught up with the criminal offenders, administered justice and then tightened handcuffs around those nefarious bad boys and girls. 

Yesterday that unmistakable TV cop Denis Waterman died at the age of 74 and Britain mourned the passing of a man whose sole purpose in life was to maintain law and order in the fictional world of TV cops. Waterman was a chirpy, cheeky, no nonsense and ruthless police officer. Back in the 1970s, Waterman represented everything we've come to associate with the British police. Alongside the equally as talented John Thaw, Waterman was the jokey, humorous but sternly unforgiving cop who just wanted to nab those nasty reprobates and lock them in prison for the rest of their lives.

In more recent times, although never the desk bound cop in the BBC's New Tricks with Amanda Redman, Alan Armstrong and James Bolan, Waterman still wandered over towards it. Working from a small office, Waterman was the hard bitten detective, the one who growled discontentedly if the case just happened to be moving too slowly for him. Then there was Alan Armstrong, the man who came to work on his bike and supported Wimbledon football club. Amanda Redman, was the calming, emollient influence, practical, dedicated and hard working. 

But then you remember Waterman's days as the loyal sidekick to John Thaw's Carter in the enthrallingly breathless The Sweeney, where the opening credits would prove to be just as memorable as the cops and robbers sketches. Thaw was hard, uncompromising, physically intimidating when he had to be and then shoving those snarling convicts into the back of a police van. Thaw never smiled in the Sweeney whereas Waterman was the jack the lad type always flirting with women, drinking real ale in the pubs and smoking one to the dozen when the pressure was on.

Almost ten years later he would reprise the role that had confirmed his place in TV folklore. Minder, starring Waterman as the devoted assistant to the sheep skin coated, cigar smoking Arthur Daley, aka George Cole, was the unintentionally funniest and yet accurate portrayal of a spiv partnering another spiv. Arthur Daley always had hugely ambitious if illegal plans for Waterman aka Terry McCann and never the twain shall meet, as they say. Daley was a wheeler dealer and manipulative while McCann just went along with everything his mate told him to do.

Memories of Denis Waterman inevitably take you back to your childhood when you could certainly leave your back door open and invite your lovely neighbours in for a cup of tea and biscuit or two. Then the stereotyped image of the copper as a Mr or Mrs Plod who would patrol your roads and streets somehow became the norm. It could be true that if they saw you were behaving in the most appalling fashion, you'd probably deserve a clip around the ear and told to either go home or stop being such a mischievous scoundrel.

For those of a certain age, it had to be Dixon of Dock Green during the 1960s. On Saturday evenings Dixon and Dock Green would follow the magical sports programme Grandstand. Jack Warner had already starred in the film version of the same TV programme in the Blue Lamp. Warner was a stern but at times quite sympathetic disciplinarian, explaining quite clearly and politely the reasons why he'd nicked you but then sending you away with stinging words in your ears. 

During the 1970 we witnessed what can now be regarded in retrospect as the golden age of British cop shows on the box. There was a A Man Called Ironside, a hard hitting, powerful American show where the legendary Raymond Burr would be wheelchair bound but still strong willed, direct and fiercely punitive when he had to be. A Man Called Ironside always seemed to be on a Saturday, appropriate enough it seems now given that Saturday night was perhaps the busiest night of all for police officers wherever you were in the world. 

Then there was Cannon, another fast talking, energetic, athletic and hardnosed American cop who always got his man or gangs of hoodlums. Frank Cannon dealt with all types, the drug takers, the pimps, the prostitutes, the drunks, the tramps and the plainly objectionable who were just asking for trouble. Cannon was down with the kids, a charmer, a gentleman, wise in the ways of the world and out to catch the thuggish element who didn't know when to stop.

In recent years we've been treated to some of the most unforgettable characters on British TV. Inspector Morse starring John Thaw, was a studious, frustrated academic, always listening to classical music in the privacy of his home and then slopping down the finest of wines when off duty. Policemen in recent times were depicted as figures with different hobbies. Morse was a voracious reader, a baffling enigma at times but just happy to know that those who broke the law would never be allowed to walk the streets as free people ever again.

When Sir David Jason became Inspector Frost you knew that here was the typical policeman doing his job properly and competently. Frost was a rumpled,  crumpled cop, permanently attached to his coat and always eating sandwiches on duty. Frost, rather like Denis Waterman in New Tricks, was never afraid to sit down at his desk and get his hands dirty. But Frost, by his own admission, was very much an eccentric, his own man, an individualist, a hunter of facts to substantiate the case he was making and tireless in his pursuit of those naughty miscreants.

And finally there was Starsky and Hutch, an American TV favourite during the 1970s that captured the imagination from the off. Starring Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, Starsky and Hutch were those fearless, all action, sprinting American cops who always seemed to jump over cars and flying cardboard boxes in the opening credits. But Starsky and Hutch were hardened cops, experienced in the world of nabbing the baddies and making sure that crime never paid. 

Yesterday a quintessential London actor-cum- copper went to the police station in heaven. Denis Waterman, the precocious child star who once appeared as Just William and would later become more widely renowned as Terry McCann in Minder, passed away and the world of British TV cop programmes bowed their heads in respect. It was indeed a fair cop.