Daily Mirror Friday November 11th 1983.

Headline: Danger: Men at play.
Subtitle: None.
Reporter: Jack Bell.
Photograph: Gary, Kevin, Tim H, Pat and Jimmy on the Elstree set.
Photo caption: OFF SITE: Jimmy Nail (Far right) and the stars of 
                         the new comedy series, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
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The actors in a new comedy drama had to undergo special treatment.
The stars of AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET (ITV 9.0) were given a two-week 
course in bricklaying and carpentry before starting work on the 
thirteen week series.
The idea came from film director Franc Roddam, who went back to his
home village near Stockton-on-Tees only to find that most of his
boyhood chums were in Germany working on building sites because there
were no jobs at home.
A lot of them had never been abroad before - and their idea of Germany
was based on prisoner-of-war movies such as Colditz, says Roddam.
"And the huts they lived in on the sites were just like Stalag 17.
I thought it was very funny."
He passes the idea on to Likely Lads creators Dick Clement and Ian
LaFrenais who have written a series about a gang of Geordie exiles.
Jimmy Nail, a 6ft 3in Geordie, plays a boozing brickie who has left
home without telling his wife.
On their first night off, he and his mates go looking for women on
the Repperbahn, Hamburgs notorious prostitute haunt.
Jimmy has actually worked for three spells on building sites in 
Germany.  "The money was good - £300 a week," he said.
"But it all went on booze and birds and I came back with nothing."
"We just went berserck, drinking and fighting and we looked on work as
rest periods to recover."

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Text (c) Mirror Group Newspapers 1983.
Researched by Paul Armstrong and Keith Hogan.
Typed by Paul Armstrong for the unoficial Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
home page 1999. http://www.aufpet.com