By ambulance from Aidensfield.

"JOHN Logie Baird has a lot to answer for," said hospital secretary TJ Middleditch in The Royal, echoing the thoughts of TV critics everywhere.

Of course, we'd all be out of a job without the man who invented television, and the producers of The Royal would be lost without a supply of old records, old cars and old actors.

This spin-off from Heartbeat substitutes medical for police matters, using exactly the same formula - several stories about doctors and patients glued together with pop songs and picturesque shots of Yorkshire.

The setting is St Aidan's Free Royal Hospital in the 1960s, a place populated by elderly actors (I mean that in the nicest possible way) including Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig and Francis Matthews.

Middleditch was cursing Baird after paying for a TV set (14 inch, walnut veneer case) for the ward. I doubt if they'll see anything through the fog of pipe smoke trailing after consultant surgeon Mr Rose.

He rarely unclamps the pipe from between his teeth. During ward rounds, a nurse holds it while he pokes and prods patients. At least he removes the smoking object during operations, where he faces other hazards - a chimney stack crashing through the roof. That was Baird's fault too as comic porter Ken was trying to fix the TV aerial to the pot.

I wouldn't be surprised if The Royal was a Labour Party propaganda plan to make us grateful for the National Health Service we have at present.

"This isn't London, they're far too expensive. We're a little behind when it comes to new-fangled gimmicks," said Middleditch when the new, young doctor suggested equipping medics with bleepers for emergencies.

This is a world where Matron is starchy, doctors are caring, consultant surgeons are as irascible as James Robertson Justice in the Doctor films, and Baby Love blares out after a woman gives birth.

"I've an outpatients in Ashfordly and a haemorrhoids in Scarborough. I can't wait for you to pull your finger out," scowled Mr Rose.

Mr Rutter would have welcomed Mr Rose operating on his daughter's ovarian cyst. As it was, Dr Jill was slicing and dicing in the theatre. "I'm not having my daughter cut up by a slip of a lass," said Mr Rutter, who believed a woman's place was in the home.

Queen Mary knew how to deal with women in the wrong place. When a suffragette threw herself in her path, she just stepped over her in The Lost Prince.

Contemporary royal scandals are so juicy that writer-director Stephen Poliakoff's drama might seem tame to some. But he tells the story of the Prince John, youngest child of George V and Queen Mary, against a background of Edwardian world events and the strange world of the royal family.

Johnnie was epileptic and had learning difficulties, so his parents decreed he should be kept out of sight. He was exiled to a cottage at Sandringham with his devoted nanny Lalla (Gina McKee). He was allowed no visitors and kept hidden when strangers called. Parental love and affection were never on the agenda. George and Mary saw so little of their children, it's a wonder they ever recognised them on the rare occasions they did meet.

The drama may have been a little leisurely for some but oozed class, from the sumptuous look to the performances from the likes of Miranda Richardson's Queen Mary and Gina McKee's Lalla.