It Sticks Out Half a Mile

The year is 1948, and former ARP Warden Bert Hodges (Bill Pertwee) arrives in the fictional seaside town of Frambourne-on-Sea (located not far up the coast from Dad's Army's Walmington-on-Sea,[1] on the South Coast of England) with a plan to restore the town's near-decrepit pier back to its former glory. To achieve this goal, Hodges meets former Home Guard Private Frank Pike, now twenty-two and working at Woolworths, to convince him to enter a partnership to raise the needed funds. Pike's "uncle" (actually Pike's father[2]), the former Home Guard Sergeant Arthur Wilson, is now the bank manager of the Frambourne branch of Swallow's Bank, so Hodges convinces Pike to ask Wilson for the £5,000 loan needed to purchase the pier. When Wilson refuses to invest such a sum of money in a such a venture, Pike blackmails Wilson over an affair that occurred when Wilson first moved to Frambourne. Wilson reluctantly agrees to give Hodges and Pike the loan, and the pier's renovation begins, but not without its challenges. The trio are met with opposition from Fred Guthrie (Glynn Edwards), the lone chief attendant in charge of supervising the pier, while Wilson must ward off the advances of Miss Perkins (Vivienne Martin), the chief cashier at Swallow's Bank, who is in love with him.

• John Le Mesurier as Arthur Wilson
• Ian Lavender as Frank Pike
• Bill Pertwee as Bert Hodges
• Vivienne Martin as Miss Perkins

The original pilot episode, set in 1948, involved former bank manager and Home Guard Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) deciding to renovate a decrepit seaside pier, built by Eugenius Birch, in the fictional town of Frambourne-on-Sea, only to find when applying for a bank loan that the manager of the local branch is his former chief cashier and Home Guard Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier).

The pilot, recorded in July 1981, was not used and Lowe died in April 1982, ending production; however, Lowe's widow had enjoyed the show and persuaded the writers to start again with a new cast. The original pilot was eventually broadcast on BBC 7, and later BBC 7's successor, BBC Radio 4 Extra.[3]

The series would never have been made had Arthur Lowe lived. The BBC rejected the 1981 pilot, on the grounds that his illness had affected his voice. Although the slur in his speech was actually due to illness, the BBC worried that it made him sound as if he was drunk, and ruled his performance as unacceptable for transmission.

Due to the death of Arthur Lowe, the original pilot was not broadcast and the tape wiped, but co-writer Snoad retained a copy which he later returned to the BBC. A short excerpt was played on a documentary entitled The Archive Hour: Radio's Lost Property on 1 November 2003, with the complete programme heard on a BBC 7 compilation entitled Some of Our Archives Were Missing on 29 May 2004. It was broadcast for a second time on 17 June 2008, as the first episode in a rerun of the entire series.

Pike's age is incorrect in this series. In the first episode of the second series of Dad's Army, titled "Operation Kilt" and set in 1940, Pike states that he is seventeen. However, eight years later in It Sticks Out Half a Mile (which is set in 1948), Pike is stated by Wilson in "The Business Proposition" as being twenty-two, when he should actually be twenty-five.

In addition, Hodges's first name in Dad's Army is stated as being William, but in It Sticks Out Half a Mile, his first name is Bert.[11]

There were two attempts to adapt the show for television, without the Dad's Army characters. The first was a BBC pilot titled Walking the Planks, starring Michael Elphick. The BBC did not commission a series. Knowles and Snoad took the concept to Yorkshire Television who produced a seven-part series under a new title, High & Dry. In the role previously performed by Elphick, Bernard Cribbins was cast. Richard Wilson and Vivienne Martin appeared in both versions.

• RadioListings broadcast guide
• It Sticks Out Half A Mile episode guide
• BBC Treasure Hunt page – with sound clip