29 December: Bernard Cribbins

This date in 1928 saw the birth of Bernard Cribbins. Here are 10 facts about him.

1. He was born in Oldham, Lancashire. His father was a plumber’s mate and his mother a weaver.

2. His first appearance on stage was as Jack Frost in a school Pantomime. It was in a school play that he was spotted by a producer at Oldham Coliseum Rep who offered him a job doing stage management and appearing in minor roles. He left school at 14 to take up that job.

3. He did national service in 1947, with the Parachute Regiment in Aldershot, Hampshire, and also in Palestine.

4. In 1955, Cribbins married Gillian McBarnet, an assistant stage manager, to whom he remained married until she died in 2021. Although he’s known for his work in children’s television, he and Gillian didn’t have any children of their own.

5. His first film was Tommy the Toreador in 1959, which starred Tommy Steele as a seaman turned bullfighter.

6. He appeared on Jackanory more often than anyone else with a record 111 appearances. He also narrated all 60 episodes of The Wombles, played the station porter, Albert Perks, in The Railway Children, narrated the "Tufty" British Public Information Films in the 1970s, was the voice of Busby, the British Telecom bird, and much more. More recently he appeared on CBeebies as a retired fisherman spinning yarns on Old Jack’s Boat. His secret when it come to children’s TV was to look at the lens and imagine a child sitting there, transfixed by whatever story he was telling.

7. He had some hit records in the early 60s, too. Working with record producer George Martin, who also worked with The Beatles, Cribbins had hits with Hole in the Ground, Right Said Fred and Gossip Calypso.

8. He is the only actor to appear in both the "Doctor Who" feature film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) and the revived television series.

9. He also holds the record for being the oldest actor to play a credited companion on Doctor Who. He was 79 when he first appeared as amateur astronomer Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather.

10. He was a keen fisherman and had a firm rule that whenever he finished a film or TV series, he’d take himself off on a fishing holiday.