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COMEDY mainstay: Brian Wilde, as Foggy
Tribute to our Foggy
26/ 3/2008
A CLOSE pal has paid tribute to Ashton-born Last of the Summer Wine star Brian Wilde.
Brian, who died last week aged 80, was best known for playing Foggy Dewhurst, one of the ageing trio of eccentrics in the popular BBC show.
The comic capers of Foggy, Compo and Clegg has kept viewers entertained for more than 30 years and made it the world’s longest-running sitcom.
Kathy Staff — the formidable Nora Batty — worked alongside Wilde who played Foggy for a total of 16 years.
Like many of the cast, he also felt the thwack of her sweeping brush on more than one occasion.
"He was one of the characters that didn’t like Nora Batty, he thought she was terrible," said Kathy, who lives in Dukinfield. "The door used to open and he was the tallest so he very often used to get it!
"Brian was a true professional. He always knew his lines, he always knew where he was walking and he played the character absolutely beautifully.
"He was very proud of his roots up here, even though he lived down south he was very proud of being from Lancashire."
Wilde was born in Ashton but spent most of his life in Hertfordshire. He first found fame as Mr Barrowclough, the soft-centred prison warder in Porridge, and was also a regular in dramas such as Z Cars, Dixon of Dock Green and The Avengers.
The father-of-two, thought to have deteriorated following a recent fall, was retired and lived with wife Eva in Ware.
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27/03/2008 at 14:05