Dad's Army loses Warden Hodges actor Bill Pertwee aged 86

COMIC actor Bill Pertwee who found fame as the disgruntled ARP Warden Hodges in Dad's Army has died aged 86.

Dad's Army cast

BILL Pertwee's stock in trade was a magnificent belligerence. It was voiced rapidly, noisily and accompanied by threatening body language, usually while he was portraying petty officialdom such as ARP Warden Hodges in television's classic comedy Dad's Army, a role which was to bring him his greatest and most lasting fame.

His catchphrases, "Put that ruddy light out!" and "Ruddy hooligans!", delivered stern-faced beneath the ever-present tin hat, were to follow him throughout the rest of his career. Strangers would stop him in the street and shout his words back at him.

He was often labelled the one villain in the long-running BBC comedy about a wartime Home Guard platoon because his air raid warden character was so aggressive when compared with the gentleness of the mostly aged campaigners. Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring was never more than peppery and Clive Dunn's Corporal Jones merely excitable with his, "They don't like it up 'em, you know."

The remainder of the fumbling squad were usually confined to bickering and intriguing while preparing to defend Britain's shores should Hitler's panzers arrive. It was Pertwee's Warden 'Odges who supplied the touch of grittiness essential to any well-rounded comedy. The role transformed his career which, until 1968 when he first became Captain Mainwaring's arch-enemy, had been that of a not-too-successful comedy actor.

For many years he found himself handicapped by the greater fame of his celebrated cousins, the playwright Michael Pertwee and his actor brother Jon Pertwee who played Dr Who and Worzel Gummidge.

Bill Pertwee could be refreshingly candid in a profession where glossing over the facts often rules. He once remarked: "I was a struggling actor before I played Hodges. He brought me to the attention of the public and the showbusiness bosses and made my name worthwhile."

The money he earned from the series enabled him to buy his own home near Guildford, Surrey, and to invest in other property. Even after the series ended, what with the frequent repeats of the programme to claim a new generation of fans, he remained a popular figure and in demand as an entertainer. He was continually busy with stage work, television commercials and latterly as a successful author. His Dad's Army - The Making of a Legend, became a bestseller. Also, he was to establish another strong, if minor character, in television comedy as the policeman in You Rang M'Lord by the Dad's Army writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry.

Bill Pertwee was born to an English father and Brazilian mother in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, in 1926. His father, a salesman, died of an asthma-related disease in 1938 and he lost a brother in the RAF during the Second World War. He was declared unfit for war service after a swimming accident. He once confessed that he did not learn to read and write until he was 13 and as a youth he lived for sport. He shone at boxing and football but his ambition was to become a professional cricketer. He loved the game so much that in 1946 he got himself appointed assistant baggage man to the Indian touring team. He was a good player, but not good enough, he was to conclude, and there followed a number of stop-gap jobs while he decided what to do with his life. He worked in a garage, in a stockbroker's office, in the sports section of a department store; he cleaned windows and once he was hired to repair dodgem cars at fairgrounds.

He entered showbusiness professionally in 1953 at the age of 27 when he began specialising in character impressions for seaside concert parties. With his customary enthusiasm for everything he tackled, he researched traditional seaside entertainment for his first book, Pertwee's Promenades and Pierrots, published in 1979.

There followed a series of variety tours in which he played the stooge to popular comics of the period, among them Beryl Reid, Charlie Chester, Ted Ray, Jimmy James, and his cousin Jon Pertwee. Then came radio which began with a six-week run in Ray's A Laugh, starring Ted Ray. Producers booked him for his versatility in doing character voices and dialects and he went on to make hundreds of broadcasts over many years including regular appearances in Kenneth Horne's enduring successes Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne.

His big break in 1968 with the Dad's Army role was the result of a hunch on his part. ARP Warden Hodges had only one line in the pilot show, yet Pertwee gambled on his future by turning down a prosperous summer season in Paignton, Devon, in the hope that the BBC would screen Dad's Army as a series. There were anxious moments, though, until the BBC finally called. He said at the time: "I thought I'd blown it. We'd just moved into a big new house and I was out of work for some months, with no money."

Dad's Army was to run for the next nine years and Pertwee's future career and his hard-earned share of the limelight was assured. He appeared frequently on other TV shows, such as Chance in a Million, 3-2-1, Pebble Mill, Spy Trap and Blankety Blank.

On stage he co-starred in numerous farces including Ray Cooney's West End productions of See How They Run and Run for Your Wife. His other books included one about railway station gardens and Stars in Battledress, about endeavours to provide entertainment for servicemen in the Second World War.

Pertwee never achieved the fully-established stardom associated with a show of his own, but he was a talented and reliable middle-ranking performer whose energy and encouragement to others never wavered.

Dad's Army was the peak of his career and he would fondly recall the camaraderie among the cast both on and off camera which could result in joyous tomfoolery. One instance was when Pertwee burst into the dressing room of his impish fellow actor John Laurie who, at 81, played the Home Guard platoon's mischievous Scotsman. Pertwee was wearing tin hat, army boots and nothing else. Laurie was not alone, as expected, but was entertaining some friends to tea; like lightning Laurie leapt to the door, locking it, invited the stricken Pertwee to join them and asked: "One lump or two?" As Pertwee would remember with loud guffaws, his only choice was to sit down, sip tea and cover his embarrassment with his tin hat.

His warm-heartedness won him local hero fame in 1988 in the village of East Horsley, Surrey, when he organised a fund-raising petition to protect a widow of 68 from developers anxious to persuade her to vacate her cottage.

He was keenly interested in a number of charity organisations. As a lifelong cricket enthusiast, he was an active member of the Lord's Taverners. He belonged to the Grand Order of Water Rats; he gave support to Old Ben, the newsvendors' charity; he helped in fundraising for firemen, recalling childhood memories of their feats in the London Blitz.

His wife, Marion Macleod, predeceased him. Their son, Jonathan, also an actor, survives him.

Bill Pertwee, comedy actor, was born on July 21, 1926. He died on May 27, 2013, aged 86

The Times