Miscellaneous Heartbeat Information

The Constable books are semi-autobiographical, based on the life of Peter Walker and his family. In them, Walker's wife Mary, is a housewife, and they have four children.

Walker tends to moralise a lot in his writing. His style is somewhat long- winded and verbose, and the books are correspondingly thick. He makes jokes, but there is often a long lead-up:

In the large and uncertain world outside the police service, the letters CID are widely assumed to mean 'Criminal Investigation Department'. In the minds of countless citizens, particularly those approaching the autumn of their years, these initials conjure up near-romantic images of trilby-hatted men in overlarge raincoats who go about mysterious work which is far too important and intellectual to be trusted to uniformed police officers.
Most of us possess a mental picture of a typical detective but there is no modern requirement for them to wear trilbies or belted raincoats. Indeed, the ideal detective should look nothing like a police officer. Too many bygone sleuths looked too much like off-duty police officers, with their short haircuts, big polished shoes, trilby hats and belted raincoats - they wore what was in effect a civilian uniform, which often defeated the purpose of wearing plain clothes. Happily, many of today's detectives do not look like police officers in their designer jeans, trainer shoes and expensive casual wear.
And this is where the real meaning of CID ought to be mentioned - it means 'Constable in Disguise'.
Constables in Disguise, or detectives as they are better known, are usually depicted entering or leaving the mighty portals of the original Scotland Yard which stood on the banks or the River Thames in London, England, in the manner of some legendary and impenetrable castle. Associated with this image are black Wolsley police cars, Black Marias, turned-up raincoat collars, loosened belts, short haircuts, magnifying glasses and the habit of addressing all other male persons as 'sir', particularly those under investigation. The number of 'sirs' emitted during an interview varies proportionately with the importance of the interview or the social class of the interviewee

From Nicholas Rhea (Peter N. Walker), 1989. Constable in Disguise. London: Headline
© 1989 Nicholas Rhea. (Extract from Chapter 1)

I guess I'm pretty hard on Walker - there's certainly nothing wrong with his writing. I think perhaps it would be easier to move from his books to Heartbeat than from Heartbeat to his books! My Aunt the Librarian, on the other hand, tells me that they are extremely popular, so I'd recommend that anyone try them and see.

I tend to prefer the parallel series (also by Peter Walker/Nicholas Rhea) which mirrors the events of the TV series.

The use of '60s music, which seems such an integral part of the series, actually happened by chance. The producers used music in scenes where there was a radio or jukebox in the background, and it took off from there. The success of the spin-off CDs shows what a successful decision this was!

The music that we hear outside the UK is not always the original music for the episode, due to copyright restrictions. An example where this happened is the Heartbeat "Christmas Special".

Did you know that Buddy Holly also recorded the song Heartbeat?

Lee writes: The MG is a 1963 MGTA ... Kate's Triumph is a 1963 Model and is cactus green.

My understanding (to be added to...)

Heartbeat
why do you miss when my baby kisses me?
Heartbeat
why does our love kiss stay in my memory?

Riddle it that
and sing to me love's story
and bring to me love's glory
heartbeat
why do you miss when my baby kisses me