AS the last surviving member of the old guard, Ian Lavender helped to keep alive the memories of one of Britain’s most beloved sitcoms.
The Dad’s Army star once said the long-running show’s legendary cast were so close, they shared secrets with each other that they “never told their wives”.
And now those secrets will be taken to the grave after the actor’s death was announced yesterday at the age of 77.
Ian — hapless Private Frank Pike in the BBC show for ten years — was the sole surviving cast member after Clive Dunn, who played loveable Lance Corporal Jack Jones, died in 2012, aged 92.
He was also the subject of one of the sitcom’s most famous gags, when a German officer demanded his name and Captain Mainwaring shouted: “Don’t tell him, Pike!”
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Arthur Lowe, who played pompous Mainwaring, John Le Mesurier, who portrayed Pike’s louche uncle, Sergeant Wilson, John Laurie, as dour Scot Private Frazer, and Arnold Ridley, who starred as gentle platoon medic Private Godfrey, all died in the early 1980s.
Ian’s agent Hilary Gagan said he had been ill for some time.
She added his passing on Friday “truly marks the end of an era”.
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Born in Birmingham in 1946, a year after the war ended, Ian was 22 and just out of drama school when he was cast as mummy’s boy bank clerk Private Pike.
The show, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, featured the escapades of a wartime Home Guard platoon in the fictional Walmington-on-Sea and ran from 1968 until 1977, often gaining 18million viewers.
As the youngest cast member, Ian gained a fan base overnight, but much of his mail was from women of a certain age.
He once joked: “I get letters from schoolgirls and middle-aged ladies who want to mother me.
“I miss out on ladies my own age.”
At 22, he was around 30 years younger than his seasoned co-stars.
He once recalled: “I was a complete beginner and I suddenly joined what was probably Britain’s most experienced team of character actors.
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“I was in a state of shock finding myself suddenly among so many great actors.
I was in a state of shock finding myself suddenly among so many great actors. When the moment came for me to speak, that funny voice of Pike just came out in a moment of panic.
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“When the moment came for me to speak, that funny voice of Pike just came out in a moment of panic.
“Since then, at the start of every new series it has been one hell of a job trying to conjure it up again.”
And he admitted in a 2018 interview: “I was so green I didn’t know we weren’t going to come back from filming that night, that we’d actually be staying in this place called Thetford.
“So I had to rush home and pack a bag.”
But he was in safe hands, and continued: “They looked after me right from the word go.
“I’d sit at their feet. I was the sprog, the junior.
“I’d sit on the floor, listening to their stories, about life and the theatre.”
The cast were a tight-knit group.
Scottish Shakespearian actor John Laurie, alias Frazer, became a father figure to Ian.
Ian said: “I talked with John for so many hours.
“He said, ‘There are things I’ve told you I’ve never told my wife, or my daughter.
“You must promise me you must never tell anybody yourself’.”
The butt of many jokes, Pike was famously referred to as “Stupid boy” by Captain Mainwaring.
But off screen, veteran actor Arthur Lowe had some kindly advice for Ian, who recalled: “He came to me in rehearsal and said, ‘Look, don’t worry if there’s not a lot of lines.
“They’ll come, don’t worry.
“In the meantime, get yourself a funny costume and stand near me’.
“I got a colourful scarf, wore my hat funny and stood near Arthur.”
In 2014 Ian used the purple and blue scarf — a nod to his home team, Aston Villa — as a prop during his one-man Edinburgh Festival show, Don’t Tell Him, Pike.
He said: “The scarf got a round of applause.
“I have to work an hour just to get a round of applause but I just bring the scarf out and it gets one straight away.”
After Dad’s Army, Ian’s roles included Pauline Fowler’s gay friend Derek Harkinson in EastEnders, which he played for four years in the 2000s and again in 2016.
He was married twice, first to actress Sue Kerchiss, for three years until 1973.
They had two sons, Sam, a film producer, and Daniel, an animator and editor.
Ian then met American-born choreographer Miki Hardy in 1977, but they didn’t marry until 1993, after Ian was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
He said: “We had been living together for 16 years and it was something I should have done a long time before.
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His cancer was successfully treated but in 2004 he had a heart attack while reading an EastEnders script.
It put paid to his time in the soap and he left in 2005.
The role of Pike made him a household name but he did find it limited his career.
He admitted in 2018: “I’ve certainly been typecast.”
Even so, repeats of the comedy classic still attract more than 1.1million viewers, and Ian certainly had no regrets about having been a part of the Dad’s Army phenomenon.
In 2014 he said: “If you asked me, ‘Would you like to be in a sitcom that was watched by 18million people, was on screen for ten years and will create lots of work for you and provide not just for you but for your children for the next 40-odd years?’. I’d be a fool to have regrets.”
