Children's Ward

Children's Ward
Also known as	The Ward
Genre	Drama
Written by	Paul Abbott Tony Basgallop
Directed by	Steve Finn Alan Bell
Starring	Rita May Ian McCulloch Carol Harvey Andrew Hall Janette Beverley Tim Stanley Ken Parry Nina Baden-Semper Ross King Michael Bray Judy Holt Tom Higgins Margery Bone Jenny Luckraft Tim Vincent Rebecca Sowden William Ash Leyla Nejad Dean Gatiss Rachel Egan Paul Swaine Chris Bisson Chloe Newsome Carl Rice Kieran O'Brien Mark Dixon Sarah Cooper Gilly Coman Will Mellor Stephen Graham Anthony Lewis Ben Sowden
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	12
No. of episodes	143
Production
Production locations	Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, UK
Running time	30 minutes
Production company	Granada Television
Original release
Network	ITV Network (CITV)
Release	15 March 1989 (1989-03-15) – 4 May 2000 (2000-05-04)

Children's Ward (retitled The Ward from 1995 to 1998) is a British children's television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons. The programme was set – as the title suggests – in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictitious South Park Hospital (known as Sparky's), and told the stories of the young patients and the staff present there.

Aimed at older children and teenagers, Children's Ward was a long-lived series for a children's drama, starting life in 1988 as a contribution to the Dramarama anthology strand, "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night", then first broadcast as a series in 1989 and running from then until 2000.

Production history

The series was conceived by Granada staff writers Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor, both of whom went on to enjoy successful careers as award-winning writers of adult television drama. At the time, they were both working on the soap opera Coronation Street, and had recently collaborated on a script for Dramarama.

Abbott, who had been through a troubled childhood himself, had initially wanted to set the series in a children's care home rather than a hospital, but this was vetoed by Granada executives. During the course of its run, however, Children's Ward won many plaudits for covering difficult issues such as cancer, alcoholism, drug addiction and child abuse in a sensitive manner. The programme won many awards, including in 1997 a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama, won by an episode in which a serial killer lures children to him via the internet and is – highly unusually for children's television – not eventually caught.

Welsh television producer Russell T Davies was the show's producer, and writer of several episodes, from 1992 to 1995.

The decision to end Children's Ward came in mid-2000, after transmission of the final series, and ironically came as the sole original cast member Rita May – who played Auxiliary Nurse Mags – said she had no plans to leave the show.

On 5 and 6 January 2013, the show was repeated as part of CITV's Old Skool Weekend, which celebrated thirty years of the children's strand. This was also the first time the programme was seen on the CITV Channel.

Filming location

Filmed at Bolton General Hospital (now the Royal Bolton Hospital), in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Some exterior shots (such as the exterior entrance to the children's hospital) were filmed outside the now demolished Maternity Hospital entrance at the former Withington Hospital, South Manchester.

30 Years of CITV, which aired on ITV1 on 29 December 2012, revealed that interior sets for the hospital were filmed next door to some of the Coronation Street interiors.

Characters

These are the original main characters from the first three series. Some lasted several years and appeared in subsequent series.

Character	Actor/Actress	Occupation	Duration	Role
Dr. McKeown	Ian McCulloch	Consultant Paediatrician	1989	Staff
Dr. Charlotte Woods	Carol Harvey	Originally Houseman to Dr McKeown, later Consultant Paediatrician	1989–1991
Charge Nurse Dave Spencer	Andrew Hall	Charge Nurse	1989
Sister Diane Meadows	Janette Beverley	Staff Nurse (1989–1992) Senior Staff Nurse (1992–1994) Ward Sister (1996)	1989–1994, 1996
Senior Sister Margaret 'Mags' Davis	Rita May	Auxiliary Nurse (1989–1993) Senior Staff Nurse (1993–1995) Ward Sister (1995–1997) Senior Ward Sister (1997–1999) Clinical Matron (1999–2000)	1989–2000
Student Nurse Gary Miller	Tim Stanley	Student Nurse	1989–1991
Jack Crossley	Ken Parry	Porter and Sweet Trolley Man	1989–1991
Staff Nurse Jan Stevens	Nina Baden-Semper	Staff Nurse	1989
Unnamed Character	Ross King	Hospital Radio DJ	1989
Steve Bailey	Michael Bray	Social Worker	1989–1991
Sister Sandra Mitchell	Judy Holt	Staff Nurse (1991) Senior Staff Nurse (1991–1992) Acting Deputy Clinical Matron (1992–1993) Ward Sister (1993–1994)	1990–1994
Dr. Kieran Gallagher	Tom Higgins	Senior House Officer, Emergency Medicine	1990–1991
Katie Grahams	Margery Bone	Student Nurse	1990–1991
Keely Johnson	Jenny Luckraft	Patient (1989) Play Assistant Student Nurse Staff Nurse	1989–1994	Patients
Billy Ryan	Tim Vincent		1989–1991
Fiona Brett	Rebecca Sowden		1989
Darren Walsh	William Ash		1989–1991
Dawn Khatir	Leyla Nejad		1989–1990
Mathew McCann	Dean Gatiss		1990
Lisa Dixon	Rachel Egan		1990
Ian Cassin.	Paul Swaine		1998
J.J.	Chris Bisson		1990
Thea	Chloe Newsome		1990
James Boyce	Carl Rice		1990
Lee Jones	Kieran O'Brien		1990
Cal Spicer	Mark Dixon		1990
Bryony Shaeffer	Sarah Cooper		1990
Ben Rowlingson	William Mellor		1990
Mickey Bell	Stephen Graham		1990
Scott Morris	Anthony Lewis		1996–1998

• Actors to go on to other theatre and television work include Chris Bisson, Tina O'Brien, Samia Ghadie, Adele Silva, Alan Halsall, Stephen Graham, Steven Arnold, Danny Dyer, Jeff Hordley, Nikki Sanderson, Andrew Lee Potts, Vicky Binns, Ralf Little, Anthony Lewis, Tim Vincent, Kieran O'Brien, Ben Sowden, William Ash and Jane Danson.

Tie-in publications

Novelisations

• White, Helen (1990). Children's Ward. Network Books. ISBN 0-563-36170-0.
• White, Helen (1991). Children's Ward – Deadly Enemies. Network Books. ISBN 0-563-36263-4.
• White, Helen (1991). Children's Ward – Make or Break. Network Books. ISBN 0-563-36264-2.
• White, Helen (1992). Children's Ward – Lost and Found. Network Books. ISBN 0-563-36391-6.
• White, Helen (1993). Children's Ward – On the Run. Network Books. ISBN 0-563-36726-1.
• White, Helen (1994). Children's Ward – The Crash. Puffin Books. ISBN 0-14-037350-0.

Script book

• Exact title unknown, possibly Children's Ward. Edited by Lawrence Till (contains selected scripts from the series by Paul Abbott, Kay Mellor and John Chambers), published by Heinemann Plays/Oxford in 1992.

DVD releases

Unlike many UK shows, Children's Ward has not been available in other English-speaking countries such as Australia or the U.S.A. prior to the U.K.. In May 2011, a U.K. DVD release was announced for release in July 2011 for the first series from Network DVD. Series 2 followed in October 2011, and Series 3 in January 2012. Series 4 was originally scheduled June 2013, but as yet has not been released.

See also

• CITV
• Grange Hill
• Byker Grove
• Press Gang

External links

• Children's Ward at IMDb