Bernard Cribbins (1928-2022)

Other people will write more eloquently than me and from more personal experience of working with him, and 93 was a fine old age and he was working until a few weeks ago, but what a sad loss Bernard Cribbins is.

I went to the cinema the other day and saw the remastered double-bill of 1960s Doctor Who movies. Cribbins appears in the second one as a policeman unwittingly swept into TARDIS and into an adventure fighting Daleks in the future, and he’s absolutely brilliant in it. He gets to do a little physical comic turn where he is trying to pretend to be a Roboman and stay in synch with them, but is mostly the straight-man action protagonist in it, showing he could do a serious acting turn when needed.

The main thing I wanted to say though was, just like many, many people of my generation no doubt, it was simply brilliant watching him hold my own children absolutely rapt with his stories on Jack’s Boat on CBeebies, and realising that I must have had exactly the same look on my face when he was telling me stories on Jackanory and The Wombles when I was their age.

What a fantastic career over decades and decades, just dedicated to entertaining people. Bless him. Rest well.