AS departures go, this is low key. No disasters, no wellpublicised death of a muchloved character and just a short obituary in the Radio Times. It’s all a bit like the programme itself – Heartbeat was never one to shout it from the highest hills, or should I say Yorkshire moorland.

This was a cosy early Sunday evening show packed with nostalgia in both fashions and soundtrack, and a cast of mildly eccentric characters who might have been bused in from an Ealing comedy.

There were births and deaths, marriages and divorces, but after 60 minutes life was going on much as before at a slow countryside pace.

After 18 years and more than 372 episodes, Heartbeat is ending. The beat won’t go on. ITV hasn’t exactly axed the series, just suspended filming on the pretext of having so many unscreened episodes in the can. But the last one is being shown without any sign of executives ordering more.

Heartbeat will just fade away, although repeats mean it’ll probably remain on screen for another 18 years. Filming in Goathland ended in May despite a local campaign to save a show that has turned the village on the North York Moors into a mecca for Heartbeat fans and boosted the local economy.

Back in 1992, they may have baulked at the inconvenience and disturbance caused by a bunch of TV luvvies invading this peaceful moorland spot. But over the years they’ve come to love seeing Goathland turned into Aidensfield on a filming schedule that kept the TV people on the moors most of the year.

But Heartbeat has become stuck in time. The opening episode was set in the Sixties and the stories have never really moved on. Perhaps it was time for the series to go before it degenerated into a parody of itself, as long-running shows tend to do.

The idea for the series was based on the Constable novels by Nicholas Rhea, the pen name of former Yorkshire policeman Peter Walker. It later gave rise to a hospital series spinoff, The Royal, with exteriors filmed in Scarborough.

The first young PC Nick Rowan (played by Nick Berry) has long gone, after the former EastEnder reached number one with his version of the Buddy Holly song Heartbeat. After six years, he went to Canada to join the Mounties, to be replaced by a series of equally young outsider bobbies on bikes.

Jason Durr took over as PC Mike Bradley, followed by James Carlton as Steve Crane, although he only lasted a year in the series.

Next on was Jonathan Kerrigan, who moved from Casualty to Heartbeat to play PC Rob Walker for four years.

As the series ends, the young bobby role is being taken by Joe McFadden, who rode into Aidensfield in 2007.

Some faces have been around much of the time. Like Derek Fowlds, who went from surly sergeant to pub landlord as Oscar Blaketon, while Trisha Penrose’s Gina has spent many an evening behind the bar at the Aidensfield Arms.

The series has promoted Yorkshire all over the world in countries from Australia to Estonia, from China to the Caribbean.

Apparently it’s a favourite with the police force on the small Pacific island of Vanuatu.

As well as the regulars, Heartbeat has welcomed a long list of supporting stars.

Singers have been particularly keen to show off their acting skills with Lulu, Ronan Keating, Charlotte Church, Alan Price and Gary Barlow featuring on the guest list that also includes Jenny Agutter, Twiggy, Frank Finlay, Jean Alexander, Dora Bryan, Thora Hird and Eric Sykes.

The series bows out with an episode, Sweet Sorrow, that offers the usual blend of drama, nostalgia and broad comedy.

A mysterious man with bruises on his face steals David’s taxi. A dead woman is found at the foot of a rock. The Aidensfield policemen, displaying previously unnoticed Sherlockian tendencies, wonder if the two cases are connected.

All this is a distraction for Blaketon and Ventress who are planning a camping trip to France to see all the places they passed through during the war.

■ Heartbeat: tomorrow, ITV1, 8pm.