BERNARD CRIBBINS 29TH DECEMBER 1928 – 22ND JULY 2022

During the 1980s, it seemed an unofficial rule of BBC television that Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. had to be scheduled during school holidays. This allowed the keen viewer to debate whether or not Peter Cushing’s Doctor was ‘canon’ and to marvel at the vehicles, especially a certain 1959 Morris JB. Driving a 191-year-old ex-GPO van into a group of irate Daleks was certainly a novel way of helping to save the world. In fact, a 194-year-old Vauxhall Velox E-Series also appears on the streets of 22^nd century London as a further testament to the durability of post-war British cars and light commercials.

Above all, Invasion Earth co-starred the great Bernard Cribbins, first seen as a Special Constable attempting to foil Jaguar Mk. X-driving jewel thieves. So many childhood memories of a certain generation are defined by this unassumingly great actor, from Nervous O’Toole and his Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn with James Young coachwork in The Wrong Arm of The Law to ‘Lenny the Dip’ in a decoy Morris-Commercial PV Black Maria in Two-Way Stretch.

There is also his cameo in The Fast Lady (he is the patient being loaded onto a Lomas-bodied Austin LD.

and pretending to drive a Vauxhall 25 Ambulance in Make Mine a Million. In his memoirs, Cribbins describes the experience of fifteen crew members having to push a very heavy machine into position. He could still not drive during the shooting of Casino Royale in 1966; for the moving scenes of the Austin FX4, “the taxi driver had to lie down in the cab next to me”.

The actor also appeared in two Children’s Film Foundation pictures that no motoring enthusiast could afford to overlook. The first is 1965’s Cup Fever, with extensive Manchester location footage, Commer FC 1500s, Bedford J2s, and an irate-looking David Lodge in a Humber Hawk Series III – what more could anyone possibly do demand from British cinema? 1968’s Ghost of a Chance features Mr. C alongside the double act of Terry Scott and Ronnie Barker and Patricia Hayes driving a Slough-built Citroën 2CV. Again, with such a cast, who needs the sort of overblown Hollywood blockbuster that haunts multiplexes for several years?

Ultimately, it is impossible to do justice to Bernard Cribbins’s career in a few words. He was the most popular storyteller on Jackanory, co-narrated the Play Safe public information film (with the infamous frisbee/pylon scene), and sang two of the greatest songs of 1962. If Right Said Fred and Hole in the Ground returned to the Top Ten, the world would be a happier place. 1981s’ Dangerous Davies – The Last Detective is a highlight of Cribbins’s later screen career – a deceptively eccentric-looking CID officer whose transportation is a 1938 Austin Eight Military Tourer. This surprisingly hard-edged comedy thriller is reminiscent of an Ealing film cleverly updated to a London of police Rover SD1s and Ford Escort Mk. II panda cars.

Of course, Bernard Cribbins will forever be Albert Perks in The Railway Children. Plus, the Tardis returns ‘PC Tom Campbell’ to 1966 London at the end of Invasion Earth, allowing him to apprehend the villains and drive their Mk. X to the nearest police station. But then audiences would expect nothing less.