Plot[]
All departments of Dobson and Hawks are reporting increased sales figures with the exception of Leonard Swindley’s book section where his choice of new books are as dusty as the unsold volumes sat on the shelves. His Wednesday afternoon reading circle is made up of a group of old ladies who pretend to be shocked at the slightest hint of anything lewd in their books but also hanker for something racier. Walter Hunt, threatening to replace the section entirely with an ironmongery section, instead stocks it with lurid paperbacks including a large selection of "bodice-rippers" which Swindley’s old ladies lap up, much preferring the delights of "Love on a Camel" and "The Naked Breakfast" to that of "Knapsack through the Chilterns" by Hilda Hopwood. Someone else takes an interest – the local C.I.D. who arrest Swindley for stocking obscene material. At court his barrister, Sir Claude Wagstaffe, advises him to plead guilty, as no one could possibly believe his defence that he thought "The Scented Flowerbed" was about gardening. Swindley is saved though when he sees that one of his old ladies, Miss Bracewell, is chairman of the bench. Swindley is welcomed back with delight by his colleagues at Dobson and Hawks who were making plans to visit him in prison. Hunt is less delighted though to hear that Swindley, who borrowed his car to go to court, backed the vehicle into the Chief Constable’s limousine and the attending policeman noticed that the tax disc was out of date…
Cast[]
Regular cast[]
- Mr Hunt - Robert Dorning
- Miss Sinclair - Joy Stewart
- Leonard Swindley - Arthur Lowe
- Mrs. Edgeley - Betty Driver
Guest cast[]
- Miss Wilkins - Julie Goodyear
- Miss Singleton - Aimee Delamain
- Miss Bracewell - Nora Nicholson
- Miss Brooks - Margaret Boyd
- Det.Sgt. Thompson - Ivor Dean
- Sir Claude Wagstaffe - Willoughby Goddard
- Court Usher - Rex Boyd
- Clerk of the Court - Jack Austin
Notes[]
- After her uncredited walk-on role in The Annual Stocktaking, Julie Goodyear appears in this episode as the bespectacled, well-spoken Miss Wilkins of the book department.
- This episode was transmitted on Wednesday 6th April at 9.10pm by both Border Television and Tyne Tees Television; on Thursday 7th April at 6.30pm by Television Wales and the West and on Friday 8th April at 9.10pm by Scottish Television. Anglia Television did not transmit the episode and along with the rest of the second season the episode was not transmitted by Westward Television, Ulster Television, Channel Television or the Teledu Cymru service of Television Wales and the West either.
- Viewing Figures: First UK broadcast - 6,700,000 homes (9th place).
Commercial releases[]
This episode was included in Network DVD collection Pardon the Expression - The Complete Second Series, released on 24th August, 2009.