Well if it isn’t Mr Bootlace!

Computer programmer Eddie Shoestring (Trevor Eve), has a nervous breakdown one day and wrecks an expensive system.

He spends most days recuperating (read: lazing around) on his dilapidated boat which is dry-docked in a local boatyard.

Meanwhile Erica Bayliss, his landlady and sometimes girlfriend, who is also a barrister has just appeared as an interview guest on local radio.

While speaking to radio station boss Don Satchley (Michael Medwin), Erica finds out that their star DJ, David Carn has got embroiled in a bit of a scandal. She knows just the person with time on their hands to make some discreet enquiries!

After successfully getting to the bottom of things, but refusing to spill the full gory details of what he found, he speaks with Don who is desperate for new programme ideas.

Thus the “private ear” is born, and after a slightly unsteady Eddie’s first episode, Radio West finds it has an unusual hit show on its hands.

So did the BBC, with a crime drama that was rather different to most – the slower pace of the West Country locations and quirky main character contrasting with the usual fare of car chases and inner city grime of other shows.

This was certainly no Sweeney or Minder and that was a conscious decision according to producer Robert Banks Stewart. Stewart cited Columbo and The Rockford files as inspiration for Shoestring.

However it is not without heart-pounding drama, in the second episode “Knock for Knock” there is a thrilling car chase around Totterdown in Bristol – home to England’s steepest road – culminating in Eddie’s car getting rammed down the street.

Three’s also another dramatic scene in the mud banks under the Severn Bridge when Eddie is set upon by two brothers he has been investigating. They also helpfully finish off his car!

First Episode – “The Private Ear” (1979)

High class young prostitute Sarah Marshall sent to a hotel to meet a new client has to make a sudden exit when she realises who he is.

Distraught and drunk, she seeks solace in a former client, smooth radio presenter David Carn, making several desperate attempts to reach him at work. Failing, she steals his car and drives to a local beach where she takes a fatal overdose.

Eddie Shoestring is a former computer programmer who has a nervous breakdown one day and is fired.

Eddie’s landlady and on/off girlfriend, Erica Bayliss, a police lawyer appears on Radio West in a phone-in programme on legal issues.

Doubts over Carn’s innocence in the girl’s death, backed up by poison pen letters and mystery calls to the station, leads to station boss Don Satchley asking Erica to help out.

She enlists Eddie, currently convalescing on his boat, to check out the girl’s background and find out the facts behind her death.

Eddie’s investigations take him into the murky Bristol underworld of clubs and massage parlours – managing to get himself beaten up in an old railway carriage in the process.

He does find out why she killed herself and who her last client was – the reason she drove herself to suicide. Meanwhile, the programme slot vacated by disgraced presenter Carn, now falls to Eddie, in his new career as a private eye, or private ear as this is a radio station.

His brief is to appeal to listeners for cases of wrongdoings against them so that he can investigate and make a programme out of it.

Don cautiously commissions Eddie to front a new programme, in which he investigates listener’s problems and then recounts the ensuing exploits on air – a landmark in local radio!

The young lead character, and radio station setting (allowing for contemporary music to be liberally sprinkled throughout the show) made the show attractive to a younger audience, along with guest stars like Toyah Wilcox appearing as a character not unlike herself in “Find the Lady”.

Other notable guest appearances included Diana Dors, Harry H Corbett and Eric Richards (Sgt Cryer from The Bill).

Eddie’s odd quirks – favouring pyjama jackets instead of shirts and doodling humorous caricatures as he interviews them, makes him very likeable and contributed to many hours of must-watch TV.

His rather laidback approach contrasting with that of The Professionals (who it was up against during the original broadcast) ‘in-yer-face’ attitude and fast cars, fast women mentality. In fact, from episode two Eddie drove a very unglamorous orange Ford Cortina estate!

That aforementioned music turned out to be a double edged sword – some thirty years later! The cost of licensing all the music for DVD release proved so expensive that several projects were abandoned.

Finally in 2011 series one was released with just one minor edit to the music (Lucky Number by Lene Lovich was replaced by Blondie’s Heart of Glass). In 2017 a more comprehensive release featured both series and a 170 page book containing a fascinating wealth of history, programme facts and full episode breakdowns.

Trevor Eve quit after just two series to pursue theatre work and was perhaps afraid of being typecast, so producer Robert Banks Stewart re-invents the character and moves over to Jersey for Bergerac. The lead role would be John Nettles who had narrowly lost out in casting for Eddie Shoestring.