Customs on tv 2 – The Collectors
The Collectors was a BBC1 series which ran for 10 episodes on Saturday evenings from March to May 1986. Unlike, The Revenue Men, it focussed on the uniformed HM Customs and Excise staff based at the Custom House in a small port called Welling (filmed at Poole).
Peter McEnery starred as Harry Caines, the new Surveyor at Welling District, drafted in from Heathrow Airport to sharpen up performance. “Chumminess is a thing of the past,” he warns his staff.
Created by Welsh writer, Ewart Alexander (Kings Royal, Juliet Bravo) the series featured a cross-section of characters. Michael Billington (UFO, The Onedin Line) played Tom Gibbons, a Higher Executive Officer, resentful at being passed over for the Surveyor’s job and placating a rich and spoilt young wife (Karen Drury, later of Brookside).
Jack McKenzie played bearded HEO Calvin Simpson, never happier than when aboard his Customs launch, The Seal. Lois Butlin (Grange Hill) was Alyson Bentley , horse riding, fast-driving Executive Officer, who brings down a smuggler in the first episode. William Whymper played Bruce Tomlin, a graduate EO who, in his spare time is writing a scholarly publication on seagrass and coastal erosion. Robert Burbage played Nigel Markham, a young and inexperienced Assistant Officer.
The BBC stated in publicity that this was the first time HM Customs and Excise had co-operated in the making of a TV series. Bruce Gill, an Assistant Collector from London was the technical advisor, and said, “ It is first class. It shows for the first time the types of work we do that the public don’t know about. It doesn’t just concentrate on VAT collection or our work at ports of entry. Taxes are collectible only with the consent of the taxpayer. This should help gain co-operation.” He added that, “People will be surprised at the low-approach we take. “
Caine’s strategy for shaking up the uniformed staff involves rotating them around other taxes and duties. Whether or not that would have worked for the unions in real-life, dramatically it enabled them to cover all the bases. In Swings and Roundabouts, the Road Fuel Testing Unit pursues wealthy farmer Jeffrey Marriott-Smith (Edward De Souza) who masterminds the diversion of excise duty rebated red diesel. Meanwhile, Alyson tries to help farmer Eric Hall (Eric Carte) when his car is seized for running on red. Reviewer William Marshall commented in the Halifax Evening Courier for 22 March that, “I never thought I would witness a series among the heroes of which was a VAT inspector, but one of the sub-plots of last Saturday’s offering showed a VAT-man spreading sweetness and light by giving a struggling farmer a £2,000 rebate.”
In Major Barclay’s Last Stand, by John Harrison, the title character is a pensioner (Lionel Jeffries ) running a small private unit of smugglers (including Victor Maddern and Betty Marsden). Caines shadows them to Cherbourg where they buy low duty goods to smuggle in to order.
In The Great Ice-Cream War, a £50,000 VAT fiddle is uncovered among ice cream sellers. In The Dog It Was, Mark Eden plays a holidaymaker who decided to hide the fact that his dog turns vicious on its return from France. As the Manchester Evening News reported (12 April 1986), the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries sent out a message “on salmon-pink stationery, pointing out the ‘timely warning’ in tonight’s episode…that rabies is ‘a deadly viral infection, which affects animals and man…inevitably fatal…offenders face unlimited fines.”
Throughout the series, the ‘Blakes Seven principle’ was applied through continued attempts to bring down wealthy French smuggler Charles Thieron (Pierre Vaneck) who somewhat improbably tempts Sue Gibbons with a smuggled Krugerrand (Go For Gold) and also uses Calvin’s girlfriend Annie Solstrom (Julia Goodman) as a drugs courier. In Rare Bird the team attempt to thwart Thieron’s smuggling of a Gyrfalcon in contravention of CITES.
As noted, the Investigation Division was not a big part of this series, although Michael Cochrane made several appearances as Chris Lucas, an ID officer having a long-distance relationship with Alyson. In episode 6, Uncommon Market, Chris is killed in road accident while pursuing two of Thieron’s men. Alyson goes through a suppressed grieving process, finally finding catharsis in true BBC style in episode 10 by taking part in the Horse of the Year show at Wembley!
Some critics complained about the intrusive background music and found the first episode turgid and confusing in its introduction of several characters. But writing in the Nottingham Evening Post (6 May 1986) Betty Boyden concluded that, “the cast may have contained many unknowns, but it is to their credit – and the credit of the scriptwriters – that over the past weeks they have managed to become people we were very pleased to meet on Saturday nights.”
Although the series is not out on DVD or iplayer, Evan Christie’s novelisation captures what some critics referred to as the sitcom level of delivery: in an early scene young AO Nigel is tidying the Long Room is preparation for Caines’ arrival. “A pile of Portcullises, the customs newspaper, lay on the counter, and Nigel decided to start with these. They were covered with a layer of dust and Nigel made the mistake of blowing on them. A cloud of dust erupted onto his face, causing him to cough and splutter.”
Writing in The People (Sunday 2 March 1986) Margaret Forwood wise-cracked that she was distracted wondering where she’d seen Tom Gibbon before. “Then I twigged it. It was dear old Michael Billington, concealed underneath a far more luxuriant toupee than the one he used to wear in the days of Spearhead.”
On his own website, the late Michael Billington said that he’d originally been approached by director Marc Miller to play the role of ill-fated ID officer Chris Lucas. On meeting producer Geraint Morris he’d been offered the larger role of Tom Gibbon. Unfortunately, “it came out as a hangover from the kind of stuffy product both the BBC and Yorkshire had had a lot of success with in the 1970’s. The show was axed because it wasn’t very good. There was casual talk of a second series but I don’t think anyone believed it.”
With only 10 episodes instead of the usual 13, it suggests that there wasn’t a lot of confidence in The Collectors. However, Customs and Excise did seem pleased enough with the show to coincidentally launch a recruitment exercise in the same month!
