Here's a surprise. This is a Seventies sitcom by Jim Eldridge (who went on to write the peerless King Street Junior). It's about a sleepy backwater railway station where all the trains run late and it had a marvellous cast: Arthur Lowe, Ian Lavender, Kenneth Connor, Liz Fraser. All the episodes were thought to have been lost. Or hiding under someone's bed. Then a listener wrote in, sending the missing programmes and Keith Skues, the original BBC announcer on the series, came in to recreate the original opening and closing announcements (seems they are still missing). Worth hearing and not just out of historic interest (it's repeated throughout the day, in true Radio 4 Extra form).

An affectionate tribute to a man described as 'one of those actors who worked all the time but never became a big star', whose knack of stealing the show playing detached authority figures made him the perfect choice for Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army. Family, friends and Dad's Army cohorts Clive Dunn and Ian Lavender recall not only Le Mesurier's charm but also his remarkable relationships with Hattie Jacques (who left him for a younger man) and actress Joan Malin, who cheated on him with best friend Tony Hancock.

Those recalling Robert Bathurst's portrayal of John Le Mesurier in BBC4's Hattie might have thought him too good to be true. Au contraire. No one - from Clive Dunn and Ian Lavender to Michael Palin and JLM's third wife - has a bad word to say about a man who endured repeated cuckolding, perpetual career disappointments and terminal illness with a half-smile and drifted through life with an ineffably British sense of opaque understatement and vague melancholy. Much time is understandably spent on Dad's Army, but this doc also serves as a frustrating 'what might have been' for an underrated actor who ambled through a stop-start career with the same unknowable civility as he did his life. He's the man for whom 'keep calm and carry on' might have been invented.

Video: Arthur Lowe honoured with blue plaque

A blue plaque dedicated to Dad's Army star Arthur Lowe was unveiled at his Derbyshire birthplace by comedy co-star Ian Lavender.

Lavender, who played Private Pike in the long-running sitcom, was in Hayfield to lead the tribute to the much-loved Captain Mainwaring actor.

The ceremony was organised by Derbyshire County Council following a vote on its website.

Lavender said he thought Lowe would have been "chuffed" with the honour.

There are TV characters who cling to our memories long after their series have been laid to rest. I'm sure many have speculated about those indomitable triers of Dad's Army. Whatever would happen to them when their pikes were taken away?

And that's the inspiration behind It Sticks Out Half a Mile, which transports John Le Mesurier, Ian Lavender and Bill Pertwee[/i] into 1948 - into a situation where John is now a bank manager, timid Ian is now a trainee manager at Woolworths and Bill is a wheeler-dealer.

Missing from the contingent are Arthur Lowe and John Laurie, now sadly dead. Ian Lavender says, "I played with that team for 10 years. The atmosphere... was so great between us - and I think that carries on, now we are supposed to be three years older." The advantage of radi, he says, "is that I don't need so much Brylcreem and eyeshadow to disguise myself, my voice is more or less the same."