Where are the snows of yesteryear?
Probably the first time that line from François Villon’s medieval poem Ballad of Ladies of Time Gone By has been applied to Bernard Cribbins, but whatever. Tempus fugit, as they say. And my childhood with it.
Bernard Cribbins, who has died age 93 was a staple of that childhood. Someone I haven’t thought about much over the last sixty years, but who–when I do–always brings a smile to my face.
Surely those younger than I know him for his appearances on British television–co-starring for a time with David Tennant in Doctor Who, or in several turns on CBeebies, or as the narrator and voice-over for many episodes of The Wombles.
He also starred in a number of films that are more contemporaneous with my own experience of him, but which I didn’t discover until much later, when they turned up on television too.
My memories of Bernard Cribbins will always be of the songs.
Right Said Fred:
Hole in the Ground:
I’d Rather Go Fishing:
Quietly Bonkers:
Thank you, Bernard Cribbins, for a lifetime of pleasant, funny, gentle, and kind memories.
And so–in your honor–and since I’m getting nowhere, I’ll just ‘ave a cuppa tea, and then I’ll go home.
Oh, wait. I already am home. Silly me.
Can’t help thinking you were home all your life too, with your beloved Gillian, whom you married in 1955. She left you last year, after 66 years of what–by all accounts–was married bliss.
And now, you’re home again.
Right, said She.
