Adam Postans There was only one vote this

Among the soap’s familiar faces is longest serving cast member Derek Thompson, who plays the lynchpin of the emergency department, Charlie Fairhead.

Despite being shot in the chest, hit by an ambulance on his wedding day, and suffering a heart attack on the soap, he is still standing – and the only original character to have appeared continuously since Casualty’s first episode.

He even met his actress wife Dee Sadler on set when she landed a part in 1987.

Derek’s role is inspired by real-life charge nurse Peter Salt, who worked at Bristol Royal Infirmary and is still a clinical nurse advisor on the show.

In last night’s 1,000th episode special, Charlie was treated to the surprise return of ward sister Lisa Duffin, known as Duffy – played by Cathy Shipton – who was with him at the show’s beginning.

Fresh off a flight from New Zealand, she confides in him that she has left her husband and children and returned home.

When the show hit the screens for that first episode in 1986, seven years into Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, it was always bound for controversy.

With the working title Front Line, creators Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, both young socialists, planned a “television revolution” that would be pro-NHS, antiTory, feminist and anti-racist.

Just eight shows in – after attacks from