Bernard Cribbins has died.

My first memory of him is of those novelty hit songs Right Said Fred and Hole in the Ground from 1962, where he carried off the part of the working man slightly bewildered at the idiocies of those supposedly in charge to perfection.

I later saw him in the spin-off Doctor Who film Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 AD. I do not consider this appearance as canonical since it doesn’t follow the TV chronology. However he did become so with appearances alongside David Tennant’s Doctor more than forty years later.

Then of course there was his railway station worker Albert Perks in The Railway Children film of 1970. But his list of film parts is long and his face and voice would have been a very familiar one, even without his voicing of the characters in The Wombles.

He always seemed to be a kindly presence. I note that unlike many well known faces of those times there has never been a hint of scandal about him.

Mnay people would choose Right Said Fred as their comedy Cribbins song but for me it will always be Hole in the Ground.

Bernard Cribbins: Hole in the Ground

The world is a smaller, poorer place for his passing.

Bernard Joseph Cribbins: 29/12/1928 – 27/7/2022. So it goes.