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The Ray Daley Years: 1991-1994 |
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Dennis Waterman left the series in 1989, to be replaced 2 years later by Gary Webster as Arthur's nephew Ray Daley. The final few series of Minder moved away from the older types of episodes and now the focus was based more upon the individual characters themselves, and the relationship between Arthur and his nephew Ray. The first ever episode The Loneliness of a Long Distance Entrepreneur was an excellent start to the series where Arthur pays Terry a visit, only to discover Terry has gone to Australia to live. All Terry has left are his keys and his Capri in the driveway. Arthur is immediately in trouble as the local villainy realise he is without his Minder. Enter Ray Daley. Although never stated in the series, Ray Daley was never considered to be as 'hard' as Terry McCann and the infamous punch-ups made famous by Dennis Waterman had now disappeared in the latter series. The focus of the last few series was very much based on 'family' as Arthur put it, and the loyalty that was to exist between Ray and Arthur. The storylines of the later series had shifted greatly, and many were often based on people Arthur had known in the past. The episodes also contained more atmospheric incidental music which had been non-existent in the earlier series. The newer series was extremely popular at the time, and this had very much to do with the casting of Gary Webster as Ray - a popular choice with young ladies at the time, due to his Jack the Lad image and trendy jackets! |
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In the first episode we are informed that Ray Daley
understands a little French and this comes rather handy in helping out
Uncle Arthur who ends up in the middle of a European wide drug smuggling
scam. In an interview with TV-AM in 1991 Gary Webster stated that he was very happy to be offered the part of Ray Daley, as he himself had been a big fan of the show as he was growing up. In real life Gary Webster is a big supporter of Arsenal Football Club. |
New Titles!
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The new series featured new opening titles. Very similar to the Terry McCann Years, again it involves cars, this time vans. Poor old Ray gets lumbered with a nice blue transit van, while Arthur gets into his Jag. Other than The Loneliness Of A Long Distance Entrepreneur the only other episode to feature alternative opening titles was an episode of the final series "All Things Brighton Beautiful". |
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New Characters!
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During the Ray Daley Years we also saw many appearances by Ray's girlfriend Gloria, played by the delightful Emma Cunningham. Other regular characters included Ray's parents Bert (Arthur's brother) and Doreen. The character of Bert (shown here) was played by actor Sidney Livingstone. Despite there being no mention of these new characters during the Terry McCann Years, Sidney had previously appeared up as a casino bouncer in the 1980 episode "Some You Win, Some You Lose". |
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Nick Day played Detective Sergeant Michael Morley
Detective Sergeant Michael Morley was the new
man in charge of the manor in 1991 and appeared in both series 8 and series 9. This
new character was a different sort of copper to that of Chisolm and Rycott,
and was played excellently by Nick Day - cast as a last minute replacement. He
was told of his part during the filming of the first episode "The Loneliness Of
A Long Distance Entrepreneur", in which he gets involved in some good
driving scenes!
Nick Day has had many fine acting roles over the last quarter of
a decade and is a keen web designer and photographer. Nick has also worked for
London Walks and does a lot of work for environmental causes. In 2004 he
appeared as Dennis Waterman's boss in the BBC series New Tricks. He is also
reported to be a regular visitor to this site!
Stephen Tompkinson
played DC Park in series 8 DC Park was replaced by DC Field,
played by Jonty Stephens in series 9
DC Park appeared in series 8 and was introduced
with Morley during the first Ray Daley episode "The Loneliness Of
A Long Distance Entrepeneur". Since leaving Minder, Stephen has moved
on to appear in a wide variety of TV and film roles, including "Drop The Dead Donkey" & "Ballykissangel".
Jonty Stephens also pops up on TV every now and again.
Other than Arthur, Ray & Dave, there were no other regular characters in
the final series.
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The second series of Minder saw Ray and Arthur off on a three part trip to Australia, moving away from the mostly London based stories that had established the series. March 1994 saw the end of the series. Many people were sorry to see the end of 'Minder' after having many years of enjoyable viewing with Arthur, Terry and Ray. The reason for demise of the series was largely due to a drop in viewing numbers and a budget cut in the final series. In the UK, one week after the final episode was broadcast, the first ever episode 'Gunfight At The OK Laundrette' was re-shown preceded with a message from George Cole himself thanking viewers for watching the series. |
After Minder...
Since the end of the series Gary Webster has appeared briefly in other roles on TV, including an advertisement for a re-run of the series on the UK satellite channel UK GOLD. Here he talks about his Uncle Arthur and the scrapes they get into! He has also appeared in the 1997 TV series "My Wonderful Life", as Sgt Jimmy Rumbold in "The Investigator" and appeared on the music video channel VH1 to introduce his top ten songs of all time - from what we can remember, we think his favourite song is Message In A Bottle by The Police!
In 2001 Gary appeared in the popular UK soap, 'Hollyoaks' and has also appeared in 'The Bill', 'Family Affairs' and the recent ITV resurrection of 'Crossroads'. One day he might return as the great Raymond Daley....who knows? He also does a lot of voiceover work for Television advertisements - check out a sample of his work over at Minder Songs.
This page was created by jno as an informative guide to the former British TV series 'Minder'.
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'Minder' - Created By Leon Griffiths - (C) Leon Griffiths/Thames Television 1979.
Last updated : 21st March 2005
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