Walking the beat of a fictional TV detective

A new walking tour celebrating a quirky detective show has had interest "from all over the country", its organiser says.

John Hughes, who has run the "Haunted and Hidden Bristol" tour for more than 20 years, has now launched a route based on the locations used to film the BBC TV show Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve.

Shoestring ran for two seasons on the BBC in 1979 and 1980 and attracted up to 20 million viewers an episode.

Mr Hughes said there is still a lot of nostalgia about the show because "it shows Bristol as it used to be" and lots of the filming locations are still unchanged after 40 years.

The show followed the life of Eddie Shoestring - a struggling private detective who also has his own show on the fictional "Radio West".

Mr Hughes said: "It was different, it was the first detective series where the guy was fallible, because the guy had had a breakdown.

"He had a boat, he was a bit eccentric, he used to wear a pyjama top rather than a normal shirt. He was quirky - a private detective working for a radio station, it was just different for its time."

Mr Hughes remembers seeing it being filmed when he was working his first job at paper and packaging company Dickinson Robinson Group.

"I used to take the waste paper from the old computers to be shredded by the Fleece and Firkin music venue, when took the waste paper out we's see them filming Shoestring across the water on Welsh back," he said.

"I was a huge fan - after work one day I went over and met Trevor Eve and Michael Medwin who were the stars of the show and they were really nice."

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