Children's Ward

Production history

Children's Ward, also known as The Ward between 1995 and 1998, was a British children's television drama that aired on ITV's Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons from 15 March 1989 to 4 May 2000. Produced by Granada Television, it took place in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictional South Park Hospital, nicknamed Sparky's, and focused on the young patients and the hospital staff. Aimed at older children and teenagers, the series began as a contribution to the Dramarama anthology strand in 1988, with the episode "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night," before becoming a full series in 1989.

The show was created by Granada staff writers Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor, who later became award-winning writers of adult television drama. At the time, both worked on Coronation Street and had just co-written a script for Dramarama. Abbott, who had a difficult childhood, originally wanted to set the series in a children's care home, but Granada executives rejected that idea. Over its run, Children's Ward earned praise for handling tough subjects like cancer, alcoholism, drug addiction, and child abuse with sensitivity. It won several awards, including a 1997 BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama for an episode where a serial killer uses the internet to lure children and, unusually for children's TV, is never caught. Russell T Davies, a Welsh television producer, served as producer and wrote episodes from 1992 to 1995.

The series ended in mid-2000 after the final series aired, ironically just as original cast member Rita May, who played Auxiliary Nurse Mags, said she had no plans to leave. On 5 and 6 January 2013, the show was repeated during CITV's Old Skool Weekend, marking its first broadcast on the CITV Channel. Filming took place at Bolton General Hospital (now Royal Bolton Hospital) in Greater Manchester, with some exterior shots, like the hospital entrance, filmed at the now-demolished Maternity Hospital entrance at Withington Hospital in South Manchester. The "30 Years of CITV" special on 29 December 2012 revealed that the interior hospital sets were built next to some Coronation Street interiors.