Australia's first successful television soap opera, Bellbird was devised by writer Barbara Vernon and telecast by ABC Television between 1967 and 1977. The serial is set in a rural farming community, with the storylines examining the lives of various people from in and around the fictional township of Bellbird. Among the long list of characters introduced during the course of the series were the crusty farmer Jim 'The Colonel' Emerson and his glamorous wife Maggie, the local mechanic Joe Turner and his wife Olive, local policeman Constable Des Davies and his wife Fiona, the unpleasant stock and station agent John Quinney, and Jim and Marge Bacom, proprietors of the local pub that served as a central meeting place.
