After being called out on a television repair, Gary Sparrow stumbles down an alley way called Duckett's Passage and unknowingly finds himself in war-torn London. There he meets Police Constable Reg Deadman, Royal Oak bar owner Eric, and Eric's young married daughter Phoebe. Gary at first takes the Royal Oak to be a 1940s thematic pub, however after an air raid Gary realises the truth and that he has actually travelled back in time.

Gary buys some 1940s clothes to look the part in the past. When he returns there, he takes Phoebe dancing – and has an unexpected encounter with Phoebe's husband.

Gary is thrown into a panic after reading that Phoebe's East-End London neighbourhood got heavily bombed by the Germans exactly 53 years ago that day. After making excuses to Yvonne, Gary quickly darts back to the forties to warn Phoebe and the patrons of the Royal Oak.

Yvonne becomes irritated with Gary and attends a university course in Huddersfield. Meanwhile, Gary persuades Ron to print him the correct identity papers, in exchange for a trip back to 1940. Although Ron follows Gary down Duckett's Passage, only Gary winds up in the past.

Gary sees an article in the paper concerning Phoebe Sparrow. Worrying that Phoebe will be waiting for him forever, he goes back to 1940 to end their relationship, telling Yvonne that he is going to a football match in Lithuania with Ron.

Ron tries to convince Gary to deal in the 1940 stock market, in order to make lots of money in 1993. Upon arrival in 1940, the King is due to visit and Gary has a plan to meet him.

Last Appearance: David Ryall as Eric.

A couple of months have passed, and Gary reluctantly travels back in time again to try another investment scheme. He goes into a bank in 1941 and meets a bank manager named Mainwaring and Wilson, his chief clerk, both of whom are in the Home Guard. When he hears the names Mainwaring and Wilson, Gary begins singing the Dad's Army theme song. Back in 1941, he finds that Reg is off the force and Eric has died in an air-raid bombing — and that a much more hardened and cynical Phoebe is running the Royal Oak.

Yvonne is desperate to move house and have a baby; the pressure affects Gary's "performance". In order to test his equipment, he goes back to visit Phoebe and finds she has a new admirer, a Czechoslovakian soldier named Ludo, or "Robert" as he wishes to be known. Gary is insanely jealous, and interferes in Ludo's attempt to con Phoebe out of the money her Dad left her. Phoebe isn't happy, as Gary is too unreliable for her and the "new" Phoebe won't stand for it.

Gary's present-day marriage is under strain. Things get worse when Gary is convicted of drink-driving and loses his driving licence and his job. In the past, Phoebe begins to warm to Gary again, and they discuss a possible future together. Meanwhile, Yvonne organises a visit from a friend, a social worker, to try to help their marital problems. Despite Gary's negativity, it does work, in a roundabout way.

Gary talks Ron into giving him a "job" and to Ron's surprise, some wages too. Facing pivotal points in both his relationships, Gary agrees to have meals with both women at the same time ... but 53 years apart! With Ron's help, Gary manages to arrange the meals within 100 yards of each other and attempts to eat both meals and keep both ladies happy. If he can get away with it, he'll be a legend amongst men!

Yvonne is offered a promotion at work, which means moving to Macclesfield. Realising he can't continue his double life, Gary has to choose between Phoebe and Yvonne. With Ron's help, he fakes suicide in the 90s and finds a room to let in the 40s.

Gary is disappointed to discover that 1941 is a great place to visit, but a terrible place to live. He's hungry and bored. Also, now that he lives in the East End, Gary is enlisted on fire-watching duty on top of a paint factory. When he forgets about it, the Royal Oak regulars give him the cold shoulder. He's desperate to go home, but he has killed himself. Is he stuck in the past?

Gary is struggling for money, having only an imaginary job. He hits upon the idea of taking pristine 1940s items to the present and selling them. Yvonne is heavily into her drama group, much to Gary's chagrin. The play involves a kissing scene with a good-looking actor. Gary is called upon to provide the wardrobe, and later to act, while in the 40s he enters a talent contest to try to win a new radiogram for Phoebe.

Having made an impression with his performance in the 1940s talent show, Gary is signed up by Sidney Wix to perform with a touring troupe in arenas around London. Gary's nerves aren't helped by the fact that the arenas are in rough areas, coupled with his promotion to lead actor in Yvonne's play. The pressure increases when Sidney Wix offers Gary a lucrative contract to sell "his" songs to recording artists, a deal Phoebe believes will provide them with a terrific future. His doctor prescribes him something to calm his nerves, but, as Gary starts to take more and more of the "happy pills", his performances become more and more interesting.

Yvonne thinks she may be pregnant, putting more strain on Gary. When Yvonne goes to her parents for the weekend, Gary joins Phoebe on a trip to the countryside. They spend the weekend visiting Phoebe's cousins, who have been evacuated. Spurred on by interest from an American serving with the British (as a bomber navigator), Gary takes his relationship with Phoebe to another level. Now he just needs to decide if he's ready for fatherhood.

Phoebe is having trouble from the brewery. George Harrison, the brewery's representative, is keen to remove Phoebe from her tenancy of the Royal Oak. He does, however, offer her a deal. If she lets him stay in her spare room and provides "special favours", then he'll make sure she keeps her tenancy. Unfortunately, Mr Harrison has met his match, as Gary arrives with his futuristic gadgetry. Back in the present, Gary campaigns to stop building on the site of Duckett's Passage. Is this the end of his time-travelling ways?

Gary buys a shop for his new business selling World War Two memorabilia, and Ron terrifies Gary when suggesting he might have influenced the Americans' decisions over Pearl Harbor. Thus to prevent putting a dent in history, back in the 1940s Gary tries convincing a senior American of the Japanese attack and runs into Guy Burgess.

When Gary returns from a skiing holiday, he goes to see Phoebe, but makes an error in front of Mrs Bloss. This creates problems for Phoebe, but Mrs Bloss has a secret too. Stella Wheatcroft arranges a New Year's Eve party but doesn't invite Ron. Gary benefits from British Summer Time.

Talking to Reg in 1942, Gary is surprised to find that Reg has no children. Eventually Gary discovers that Reg has had an affair with a bus conductress, Margie, and that unknown to Reg she has a little boy, Frankie, who is Reg's son.

While Ron and Stella continue to have their marital problems, Gary discovers that somebody is passing forged notes in wartime England. Ron tells him that the Germans flooded England with forged notes, hoping to undermine Great Britain's economy.

Gary has become overconfident about his relationships with both Phoebe and Yvonne, and boasts to Ron about his prowess with women.

Back in 1942 Phoebe's orphaned niece and nephew Sally and Peter are back from the country and are staying with Phoebe at the Royal Oak. The Kray twins, who live just around the corner, are forbidden to join as their behaviour is too disruptive.

In 1942 Gary encounters George Formby and his organising wife who want to buy a hit song from him. Phoebe believes that Gary should sell them his new song – "When I'm Sixty-Four" – but Gary has doubts about the matter and dissuades George from purchasing this Beatles classic.

Phoebe's husband Donald has escaped from the prisoner of war camp in Italy and has been welcomed home as a hero.

Gary returns to 1942 and discovers that Phoebe is very ill in hospital with pneumonia.

With America in the war, her soldiers are in London and visit the Royal Oak. Inevitably this causes difficulty for Gary, when being questioned about his imaginary lifestyle in America. Back in the nineties, Ron pesters Gary to strike a trading deal with the Americans.

Yvonne is very keen to sell their home in Cricklewood and move into a large complex with a swimming pool and gymnasium in the basement.

Last Appearance: Dervla Kirwan as Phoebe and Michelle Holmes as Yvonne.

Yvonne and Phoebe are both pregnant, and Gary is worried sick about how he is going to cope with looking after two babies in two different eras.

First appearance: Elizabeth Carling as Phoebe and Emma Amos as Yvonne.

Both Yvonne and Phoebe are experiencing very bad morning sickness, and Gary's sex life is non existent.

Yvonne leaves for Korea, telling Gary that she will phone him every evening at 11:00 pm. This does not suit Gary who has a holiday in the country with Phoebe planned for the next week, so Ron comes to the rescue again, telling Yvonne when she rings that Gary is suffering from laryngitis.

Ron is involved in a fight with Stella's latest lover, and ends up in prison. In the past, Donald (Phoebe's Husband) is killed in Egypt, his mother also comes to stay whilst taking a strong dislike to Gary. With Donald now dead, Gary assumes that he and Phoebe can get married right away and this upsets Phoebe who says that they will have to wait at least a year before they get married.

This is the only episode the character of Yvonne does not appear.

While in Liverpool with Phoebe, Gary meets Ron's grandfather, who, according to history, saved a child from a burning building. But when the so-called "hero" is imprisoned, Gary is shocked to see its effect on the future.

Reg Deadman's girlfriend Margie has split from her abusive husband and at Gary's suggestion they have decided to move in together with their little boy Frankie. Unfortunately Margie's husband visits the Royal Oak and mistakes Gary for Reg, with almost disastrous results.

While coming to terms with her miscarriage, Yvonne becomes interested in alternative health therapies.

Gary attends two stag nights in two different time eras. Ron has got alcohol, a "blue" film and stripper in store, while heavy drinking persists at the Royal Oak, leading to Gary fainting and waking up on a plane over the English channel.

A hectic stag night causes Gary to wake up late for his wedding. When rushing back to the forties, a funeral is taking place at the Church, and Phoebe is reluctant to speak to Gary.

Ron's marriage to Stella is over, and he isn't having any luck with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, he refuses to print any more white fivers for Gary, unless Gary sets him up with Yvonne's attractive friend Kate, who really isn't interested.

Yvonne invests all of hers and Gary's money in a health food venture with a man called Clive whom Gary despises because he wears a ponytail. Phoebe gives birth to her and Gary's baby.

Gary takes Michael out in his pram onto Whitechapel Road and is nearly killed by a bomb. When he awakes in the present day, he is horrified to discover Michael has also travelled in time.

Gary is moving up the social ladder in both eras, though not smoothly in either. Noël Coward helps Phoebe to cope with living in the West End when she has trouble with the butcher, by showing her how to improve her accent. As Yvonne's business makes her a celebrity, she plans a new house, and is invited to the Woman of the Year awards, which is followed by a party at No 10 Downing Street. Gary and Phoebe get their revenge on the butcher

A bomb explosion blasts the time warp open to all and throws Reg against a wall, giving him a blow on the head that makes him much smarter than he had been, and he suddenly starts solving crimes in his area. Phoebe, trying to follow Gary, unknowingly stumbles into the 1990s, to Gary's horror. Ron has gone to meet his date, but misses the opportunity of meeting an attractive female when Gary urgently asks for his help. Gary convinces Phoebe that the shop is his secret place of work for the intelligence service and plays a recording of a bombing raid to keep her hiding beneath a table and stop her going outside into present day London. Gary's worst fears are realised when Phoebe and Yvonne meet.

With the time portal still haywire, Ron makes it back to the forties, where he is out of place and makes Gary's life even more difficult, but Ron resents Gary's attempts to restrain Ron's exuberance in a bomb shelter during an air raid, and, using his powers as 'Commander Bond', Gary ends up tied up. But when Ron starts telling everyone in the bomb shelter about what will happen in the future, it sounds so outrageous that it convinces everyone that Commander Bond is raving mad and Gary is released.

Gary desperately needs more wartime five pound notes, but Mrs. Flanagan, Ron's employer at the printing works, won't let the staff do private work in company time. Ron gets Gary to go on a 'date' with Mrs Flanagan to get her out of the way for a few hours so that he and other employees can do some private printing. When Gary and Flanagan return, they find the police have raided the printing works and Ron is arrested for counterfeiting wartime £5 notes. However, this turns out not to be an offence and he is released, but, since he has spilled the beans on the reason why he was printing the obsolete currency, is required to see a psychiatrist.

Back in 1944, Gary had been trying to raise local currency by using his knowledge of the results of races to win money from an illegal bookmaker. However, the bookmaker makes sure he wins by reporting the wrong results. During the melee that results from Gary's remonstrations with the bookmaker, Reg is hit on the head, changing him back to the dim-witted Reg he was before he was hit on the head when the bomb in Duckett's passage went off.

Yvonne continues to travel for Nature Boy Cosmetics. Gary takes Phoebe to the Cafe Royal, where his false wartime identity finally catches up with him, and he is recruited by MI5 for a secret mission to the Isle of Wight.

Gary's mission to the Isle of Wight takes him to France instead, where he is captured by the Gestapo. He must figure out a way to explain before he is sent to Berlin to be tortured. Meanwhile, Ron is recruited by Yvonne to escort a fashion model to the launch of a new Nature Boy product.

Gary is very unsettled after his French adventure, and he feels like he's losing his mind: he can't tell whether he's awake or asleep, dreaming or experiencing reality. Then Rolf Harris appears in one of his dreams, while Gary is playing and singing Two Little Boys. Anachronistically, the song was in fact written in 1902 and was quite popular at the time, before it had a resurgence in 1969 when Harris released the single.

In Gary's dreams, Yvonne and Phoebe come together (with Ron and, briefly, Reg) and deliberately make him feel guilty about how he has been using them all.

Yvonne is signing copies of her just published autobiography. Meanwhile, Gary finds out from the porter in the 1990s that the owner of his 1940s West End flat is going to be killed in a road accident – what is he to do? Discovering Reg Deadman is still alive in the 90s, he visits the elderly Reg to get information. Reg at first recognizes Gary, but his memory is shot and is of no help in solving the mystery. In desperation, Gary moves the family out of the apartment and the real estate agent moves in rent-free. Gary feels guilty about having set him up to be killed and goes back to 1944 to warn him about the accident. During the discussion, they hear the sound of an accident, and it turns out to have been the person living in number 16 not number 15 who was killed. In the background, Gary is supposed to be attending Margie's 40th birthday party in 1944 while simultaneously staying in the Ritz for an amorous evening with Yvonne.

Gary's now grown up son Michael comes into the shop to sell some of Phoebe's things. He has spent time in prison and lives in a one room flat in Hackney. After seeing what could become of Michael, Gary attempts to make sure he has a brighter future. His decision to donate the royalties from a song that he 'wrote' for Phoebe makes all the difference to Michael's future. This time, Michael is a success and has moved to New Zealand and has two children. The girl is named 'Phoebe' after her grandmother, but Gary is disappointed to hear that his grandson is not named after him. The role of Michael was played by Ian Lavender, who appeared in Dad's Army. In the first episode of season 2, Gary went to a bank where he met two people named Mainwaring and Wilson, name of two characters from Dad's Army. During their discussion, Gary says "stupid boy" to their assistant, (whose surname is Major, the same as Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer and successor). This was what Capt. Mainwaring would say to Private Frank Pike; who was played by Ian Lavender

Gary gets struck by lightning as he enters the time portal, thus an evil duplicate of himself is released. The pathologically evil replicate begins causing a stir, yet it seems Yvonne and Ron prefer Gary's alter ego. The alter ego first ties Gary up, but the original Gary gets free and hunts him down, taking a shot at him in The Royal Oak. The evil one fools Ron into believing that it is the real Gary who is the twin and the two capture the real Gary, and the evil one is about to shoot him when a third Gary shows up. This is the really good and selfless Gary. The evil one is overcome by Ron and the Garys are reunited when they pass through the time portal together.

Gary becomes depressed when Yvonne throws him out of the house, thus he goes to stay with Ron and his girlfriend. Things aren't much easier in war-torn London either, as Phoebe suspects Gary of having an affair with another woman. Gary tries to use Ron's girlfriend to make Yvonne jealous, and manages to persuade Yvonne to give him another chance.

Yvonne wants to be near the expansion of her Nature Boy cosmetics into the US market and move to California, but Gary convinces her to stay with him in London. Meanwhile Phoebe also has her heart set on moving to California and starting a new life when the Royal Oak comes under new management. Reg retires from the police force and is disappointed when Gary is the only one to show up to his retirement party. Gary tries to distract Phoebe from his Californian dream by setting her up managing a night club, where she also becomes the featured singer. Reg is hired by Phoebe as the bouncer and part-time barman. Gary is congratulating himself on having successfully distracted Phoebe from her dream as she did not mention California once when talking with him during a break between sets, but then she starts singing a song that Gary "wrote" called California dreamin' (as arranged for Nancy Sinatra).

Phoebe loses her patience when Gary backs out of a part in Noël Coward's new film, unaware that this is because he doesn't want to be recognised in it in the 1990s.

When Gary travels the wrong way from the 1940s, he ends up in Victorian London where Jack the Ripper is on the loose; Gary also learns the murderer has been using the backyard of his shop as a hideout. In the 1990s, Yvonne sells Nature Boy cosmetics for a multi-million-pound sum of money.

When a shady character from the future arrives at Gary's shop to close a time portal, Gary decides his priorities lie in the forties with Phoebe and his son. He leaves the shop to Ron, who promptly sells the entire stock on credit to a teenager from the future.

A trip to northern France to entertain the troops forces Gary to play the hero following a sudden advance by the Germans.

Gary and Phoebe have to deal with a protection racket, while Yvonne receives a rude surprise.

Gary must take drastic measures to ensure that a compromising photo from the Forties isn't seen in the present by Yvonne.

Yvonne sees Gary go through the time portal and demands answers on his return. Gary later celebrates VE Day with Phoebe, Reg and company, and saves guest-speaker Clement Attlee's life when a foe tries to kill him. Surmising that that was why he had been sent back, to his horror, he then finds that the time portal has closed, leaving him trapped in the 1940s, with Ron explaining the full story to Yvonne in the nineties.

Seventeen years on and living in 1962, Gary realises he has the opportunity to witness himself being born. On arrival at the maternity hospital, he meets his own father waiting anxiously, and when the baby arrives tells the midwife that he is its uncle. As she hands him himself as a newborn, the time portal is thunderously reopened and grown-up Gary is catapulted into 2016.^[52]