Having a Glasgow-set soap opera may have seemed like a novel idea to many viewers when River City hit our screens back in the autumn of 2002, and yet it was far from being the first of its kind.
That distinction goes to High Living, a show that had aired on STV more than 30 years earlier. First broadcast on December 5, 1968, the thrice-weekly TV serial introduced viewers to the Crombie family, who, like so many of Glasgow's working class families in the '60s, have just moved from an old tenement into a new multi-storey tower block.
It was co-penned by Glasgow-born Jack Gerson, who would later create another Scots TV favourite, paranormal activity drama The Omega Factor (1979). In episode one of High Living, the Crombies have just completed their flit. Andy, Kate and the children are looking forward to modern living but, the grandmother of the family is unsettled and unimpressed by this new high rise life.
