No-one does crime drama quite like the British.

So, it’s unusual for Canowindra to have pride-of-place in an episode of the English television series often rated the best ever.

It’s more than 30 years since the “Promised Land” instalment of Inspector Morse was filmed in one of the central west’s most authentic country towns, but Ken Thurtell, like many old-time locals, remembers it like it was yesterday.

Head of the Canowindra State Emergency Services (SES) rescue service in 1991, he recalls daily mingling with cast and crew who stored their props and multifarious cameras, lighting, and sound recording equipment at the SES storage shed.

“I do remember them; they came here and took over the town for two weeks when they were filming, it was a big deal for the town.

“They kept their gear in the shed, so I was always dealing with them. They had piles of stuff, you wouldn’t believe how much equipment they had,” he recalls.

Like many locals, his wife, Colleen, then a nurse at the historic Canowindra Soldiers Memorial Hospital, acted as an extra in the episode, in a scene at her workplace where a victim of the attacker stalking the town, had been taken.

He also recalls chatting to legendary British crime actor John Thaw (Morse) who — despite his reputation for extreme reticence — he found approachable and friendly, although the final product, he said, didn’t quite measure up to his expectations.

“I met John Thaw a number of times, he wouldn’t come up and chat to you, but he’d be quite friendly if you approached him. He was a nice man. He’d definitely have a yarn with you.

“It was alright, the episode, though I didn’t think it was as good as the money they put into it, which must have been plenty, for the amount of gear they had.”

Despite his lukewarm review, the episode and series are still quite popular, featuring prominently, as it does, the iconic main street and a number of other local landmarks including the “Charles McCarron Baths” (local pool), and the classic western NSW railway siding and wheat storage silos.

“I’ve seen it quite a few times, it shows so many local areas, and town people who were in it, as extras.

“It was a big thing for Canowindra,” he added.

Promised Land revolves around the eponymous Inspector Morse — played with his usual scholarly mix of vanity, inspiration, and despair, by Thaw — travelling from the erudite world of Oxford, England, to the fictional Australian outback town of “Herefordshire”.

Ordered by his Inspector to check a witness statement by a petty criminal who has been relocated with his family for having testified against a gangland boss, soon after his arrival, it becomes apparent that a member of the crime family has also arrived, seeking revenge on the informant and his children.

The crime is eventually solved, but not before adulterous Police Sergeant, Scott Humphries, played by the inimitable John Jarrett, lays down his life at Canowindra’s emblematic railway siding, for the woman that he and Morse both loved at different times.

Watched now, the episode features the then-typically exotic Australian locations, outlandishly-broad diction, dubious geography, and a soundtrack of garish, Ocker, trucker songs that is presented in the episode as Australia’s contribution to world music.

In another strange aside, Morse, a renowned beer-aficionado, also oddly refuses to partake of the local brew, declaring it undrinkable and saying (inaccurately) at one point: “There’s a reason that Australian beer has ‘four exxes’ on the label”.

The episode (of course) ends with Classics-lover Morse on the steps of the Sydney Opera House seeing off his loyal offsider, Lewis — who is heading off on the obligatory around-Australia trip with his wife in a campervan — before the perpetually disappointed “Chief” Inspector reluctantly heads to an opera performance inside.