Where's wor bridge going, Pet?

A NATIVE American Indian sits crosslegged on the desert floor under the hot Arizona sun, overlooking the Grand Canyon. He raises his head skywards and the unmistakable figure of the Angel of the North looms into view.

The scene is set for a TV game of cowboys - in the form of some familiar Geordie building workers - and Indians as one of the small screen's best-loved series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet returns after a 16-year gap.

The lives of native American Indians in Arizona and working men in the North-East may seem worlds apart but Norton-born Franc Roddam, who created the series, spotted similarities while making a film, War Party, in the 1980s. One of the actors, Saginaw Grant, became godfather to his daughter and plays the medicine man in the current Pet series.

"I stayed in a house on a reservation and what struck me was that it was like living in Stockton in the late 1950s," says Roddam.

The idea of two tribes was further developed for the new series by writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. "There's a similarity between disenfranchised working artisans over here and over there. It's two groups of disenfranchised people," explains Whitley Bay-born La Frenais.

"We were over there driving along this narrow road and saw all the business signs were shredded and broken glass everywhere. They just drive down the road and throw bottles at the signs. So it's a bit like the Bigg Market on a Saturday night."

This time the series has switched from ITV to BBC1. Amazingly, Roddam has been able not only to get the same writers but most of the original cast together again.

"It was like a family reunion," says actor Tim Healy. "Once the six of us were together again, it was just like it used to be - a bit like Newcastle United passing the ball around again."

Kevin Whately adds: "To work with old pals is a real luxury. We've kept in touch over the years, partly because most of us have kids of a similar age which tends to keep people together."

Healy returns as Dennis and Whately as Kevin with Jimmy Nail (Oz), Timothy Spall (Barry), Christopher Fairhead (Moxey) and Pat Roach (Bomber) recreating their roles too. Missing from the original magnificent seven is Gary Holton, alias Wayne, who died in 1985. His place is taken by newcomer Noel Clarke, playing Wayne's son, Wyman.

Filming took them from Newcastle and Middlesbrough to Arizona as newly-respectable Oz persuades the brickies to turn bosses in a seemingly-mad plan to dismantle the Transporter Bridge on Teesside and sell it to native American Indians.

The genesis for their return was a stage concert in Newcastle to raise money for a fund set up in memory of Sammy Johnson, a good friend of the Geordie actors. Clement and La Frenais were asked to write a special Auf Wiedersehen Pet sketch for the show. "We played the characters of Dennis, Neville and Oz on stage for the first time. In fact, Jimmy had never worked on stage, except as a singer," says Healy. "We walked out to this fantastic reception from the audience. People laughed and laughed and laughed."

The enthusiastic reaction was reported back to the writers, who've lived in California since the 1980s. "We had no ulterior motive when we wrote that sketch, but if we hadn't done it, the series might never have happened," Clement points out.

Around the same time, the rights to the series reverted back to Roddam. When he met Nail by chance in the street in London, he said he was thinking of reviving Pet. Much to his surprise, the Spender and Crocodile Shoes star replied, "count me in".

With Nail on board - though most assumed wouldn't be interested in reprising Oz - a meeting of the rest of the actors and writers was set up. They all liked the idea and the BBC agreed to back it.

Other TV series have tried to make comebacks and failed miserably. Roddam thinks Pet will work for a modern audience, some of whom weren't even born when the original was broadcast, because the issues at the heart of the story are still relevant.

"A lot of people are suffering from being cut off. This is a big issue for the working class people in this country. We've moved from the blue collar age through the white collar age and on to the electronic age. You want to see how it's changed these people," he says.

"It's about the dignity of the working classes. This is the industrial area where I grew up, around Middlesbrough and Newcastle, with proud people, full of dignity. You go to the same housing estate where I grew up now, and you have petrol bombing and crack houses. Society has changed very quickly."

La Frenais has become aware of the changes too on return trips to the area. On the day Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was launched in Newcastle, he told of spending the day walking around Tynemouth and the city centre.

"The place looks wonderful and people are aware of it, that the city has become very special. That's the big transformation for me. The city is so different," he says.

He and his writing partner, whose other hits include The Likely Lads and Porridge, keep up with what's happening in the region through reading and watching documentaries.

Saginaw visited them in California to talk about the real native American customs and reservations, rather than the fictional view gleaned from cowboy movies. "There are a lot of very depressed places, a lot of alcohol and a lot of guys out of work," says Clement.

"Just like the North-East," Roddam observes.

This research was simpler than for the original Pet when Roddam's friend Mick, whose time as a labourer in Germany provided the inspiration for the story, acted as technical advisor. He was living on Teesside while Clement and La Frenais were writing the series 6,000 miles away in Hollywood.

"He gave us the number of a call box in Stockton and we arranged to call at certain times," recalls Clement. "One night the police saw him hanging around outside the telephone box and asked what he was doing. He said, 'waiting for a call from Hollywood'. They didn't believe him - until the phone rang."

The actors have become established names since first appearing in Pet. Now the new series looks set to make the Transporter Bridge famous nationwide, as millions of viewers get a prolonged look at the Teesside landmark opened in 1911.

The local council was happy to allow programme-makers to film there but did ask for an on-screen announcement that the bridge was still in Middlesbrough. They didn't want potential tourists left with the impression that it really has been dismantled and taken to Arizona.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet begins on BBC1 tomorrow at 9pm