Trivia: Series 16 to 20 | Summer Wine Decanted

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In this video we will look at some of things you probably didn’t know or hadn’t noticed before – from continuity errors to behind-the-scenes secrets in series 16 to 20.

= Who really is Compo’s “old flame” on the motorbike?
= When did director and producer Alan Bell think Summer Wine was going to end?
= Who is the actress playing the wife of Mr Lucy?

The year 2023 marks 50 years since the pilot and first series of “Last of the Summer Wine” were broadcast. This series of videos is filmed in many of the well-known, and some less well-known, locations seen in the programme.

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♪ [Music] ♪ This was the first episode broadcast in widescreen aspect ratio. Brian Wilde’s son, Andrew Wilde, was film editor on “Last of the Summer Wine” for 166 episodes from this episode to the final episode in 2010. When Compo finds a portable air raid siren

In his home, Foggy thinks it might be worth something. The siren used in the show was likely a replica. Today an original in good condition would be valued at about £600. So, swapping it for the flagpole at Aunty Wainwright’s might have been a good deal as

A new 20 foot long wooden flagpole would cost just over £400. This episode is unusual as there is a ‘Steadicam’ operator listed in the credits. Usually the moving camera shots were achieved with the camera mounted on a camera crane or a camera Dolly on wheels. Steadicam is a brand of camera

Stabiliser that isolates the camera from the operator’s movement, allowing for a smooth shot even when the operator is walking. Mrs Broadbent, abandoned by her husband in the Transit Van he gave to the Trio, was played by Emily Perry. From 1987 she regularly appeared as Dame Edna Everage’s silent bridesmaid,

Madge Allsop. She was 87 when she filmed this episode in 1994 and made three further television appearances with Dame Everage up to 2001 and passed away in 2008 aged 100. Compo is waiting at a bus stop with Nora. After the bus doors close and it starts to

Move off you can see the reflection of a canvas director’s style folding chair. First credited in this episode, Ron Backhouse was the real landlord of the White Horse pub. He had a total of 10 credited appearances as landlord between

1995 and 2001. He was not an actor but was able to appear as he was carrying out the professional activities of his employment. Compo is briefly reunited with an old flame, motorbike riding Babs. Babs is a non-speaking character and never takes her helmet off, which

Is just as well as its male biker Sam Smith in the Leatherton helmet. Stanley Pocklington, also known as “Ace”, says “Our Neville is making a spaceship, he works for British Rail.” Perhaps Roy Clark knew about the British Rail flying saucer. It was an interplanetary spacecraft designed by Charles Osmond Frederick.

A patent application was filed on behalf of British Rail in December 1970 and patent number GB1310990 was granted on 21 March 1973. When Compo is on the bicycle training for sudden deceleration, he’s wearing braces for the sixth time. Tony Barton makes an appearance as a landlord

In this episode, followed by two very convincing and entertaining appearances as a drunk in the series 28 episode “The Crow croft Challenge” and the series 29 episode “A Short Introduction to Cooper’s Rules”, but he’s not explicitly the same character as the landlord. When Foggy, Compo and Clegg ride their bikes

Onto the waste ground, we see their back view and Clegg immediately starts to tinker with his bike chain. Foggy and Compo chat in the foreground with, Clegg partially obscured. As they move off we see them from behind again. This seems to be to disguise the fact that

It’s not Peter Sallis but his double in this scene. There is a cameo appearance of Lois Laurel, daughter of Stan Laurel, during which a snippet of “The Cuckoo” can be heard in the incidental music. “The Cuckoo” was “Laurel and Hardy’s” theme tune. When traffic warden Cyril Gridley stops the

Traffic for Marina to cross the road, the white Peugeot car that stops had been parked when he walked into the road. When Compo wears the borrowed Teddy Boy outfit he is wearing braces for the seventh and final time. In the series 21 episode “Just a Small Funeral”

Truly comments “You think you know somebody and then you find six pairs of braces in his drawer. I never knew he wore braces.” When the ladies are in Edie’s car comparing notes on men, Nora says “Mine never went off”. Apparently she’d forgotten that Wally

Left her for a week in the series 2 episode “Some Enchanted Evening”. As Howard seems to like Marina’s fashion choices, Pearl decides to emulate her by wearing a revealing fluorescent yellow top, pink bolero jacket and a skirt that is probably shorter than any of Marina’s outfits.

In the street Eli mistakes her for Marina. Wesley is driving the coach for the church outing. Foggy says there are about 40 people there who can help make a circle for the magnetism detector. The coach is only a 24 seater and

Later in the field there are about 30 people in the circle including the Trio. Edie surpasses herself and manages to drive her car on the railway line. In one shot as the car disappears down the track you can just see the outrigger supporting the car.

The track gauge and the width of the Triumph Herald meant that its wheels would have genuinely fitted on the tracks. At the end of the episode Marina ends up on Clegg’s roof and Santa walks by. The house used was a different property where the roof

At the back of the building is at street level, a lot safer and more convenient for filming. According to the Daily Telegraph in 1996, “Last of the Summer Wine” was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite television series. However, despite this, when the Queen made an official visit to the BBC soon after this

Accolade was published, she was taken to meet the cast of “EastEnders”. Alan Bell stated that he thought “First of the Summer Wine” would take over from “Last of the Summer Wine” as he expected “Extra! Extra!”, that was filmed here at Meal Hill House, to be the final episode.

When Edie and the ladies arrive at the location for the film shoot, Edie parks her car near a blue truck but in the shot just after, when the ladies are near the circus top, the car’s vanished. Wesley has a Talbot Samba car up on ramps fixing it. Meanwhile Barry arrives at Edie’s

To drop Glenda off in the same car. This could have been later in the day but cut back to Wesley and he still has the same car on ramps. When Smiler, in crossing patrol outfit, is chased off by children he reappears with footprints on his coat and his stop sign bent. When he

Arrives back at Auntie’s his sign is still bent but his coat is clean. Marina has a customised yellow Mini Shorty car which is never seen again after this episode. When she sees Clegg she says “Would you care for another *lift*, Norman?” in a

Call-back to the unseen occasion where they were stuck in a lift together. This is the second and final time an episode features two third men. This episode introduced Herbert “Truly of the Yard” Truelove, while Foggy was present but worse for drink, played by long term Foggy double Colin Harris.

This episode at the stag night venue is the first time we see Compo minesweeping. He does it again in the series 20 episode “What’s Happened to Barry’s Nose?” as soon as he enters the Whitehorse pub. The photographer seen near the end of the episode is real life

Newspaper and official “Last of the Summer Wine” photographer Malcolm Howarth. As he’s not an actor he was able to appear as he was carrying out the professional activities of his employment. From series 19 the programme often starts with what is called a cold open. This is the

Practice of jumping directly into a story at the beginning of the programme before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. Sometimes this is a set up for the main plot or other times just a short interplay between characters for a quick joke.

There is a photo of Seymour Utterthwaite on Barry and Glenda’s mantelpiece from series 19, the first time the studio interior of their home is used since Michael Aldridge passed away in 1994. This episode features one of the many times that Howard visits Marina at work. A few different

Shops were used in the show. This Lodges store in Huddersfield is used in several episodes. In this episode we also see the back entrance of the shop but it’s really the side of the Old New Inn pub in Marsden. Bree Martin appears as Trudy in “Tarzan of

The Towpath”, then she is a friend of or known to Glenda in two roles: Astrid in the series 23 episode “The Mystical Squeak of Howard’s Bicycle” and finally as the bride in the series 30 episode “Goodnight Sweet Ferret”. These three episodes of “Last of the Summer Wine” are

Bree Martin’s only known acting roles. Glenda tells Pearl that Barry occasionally plays the saxophone but he does not buy his sax from Aunty until three episodes later in “The Only Diesel Powered Saxophone in Captivity”. Possibly these episodes were broadcast in a different order than originally intended.

The second van Howard bought, but his first ‘secret’ one, is never seen again after this episode. Compo helps Smiler deliver a cartload of items from Aunty’s shop to the fictional road Donaldson Street. The postwoman has delivered a postcard to Nora, then, despite saying “It’s not my business to gossip about other people’s mail”,

She tells Compo it’s a postcard from the Canary Islands saying “Weather good, food brilliant” from someone called Gladwin. Perhaps this was Roy Clark’s tribute to Cathy Staff’s late co-star Joe Gladwin. In the series 21 episode “Under the Rug” Clegg says he knows the post lady reads people’s postcards.

When Aunty dresses Smiler in horse riding gear he says “I suppose I ought to be grateful you’re not selling ladies frocks”. Then a few episodes later in “Who’s Thrown Her Tom Cruise Photos Away?” Smiler ends up giving leaflets out wearing a wig and a dress.

It seems Mr Lucy wants to end it all by jumping off a bridge into a stream. According to designer Stephan Paczai there was no suitable bridge anywhere in Yorkshire so they built one here. As the fake bridge is used in several more episodes they had to employ a security firm

To watch over it in case somebody tried to steal it or damage it. The trio persuade Mr Lucy to go back to his wife who he calls Honeypot. She’s more of a poison chalice played by Jennifer Guess, a pseudonym and anagram of Jean Ferguson. Seeing Barry in horse riding gear Nora says

She thinks men look magnificent in riding gear, which Compo overhears so he borrows riding gear from Auntie’s. Nora briefly sees him tearing down the road on Auntie’s makeshift riding simulator and the outfit does make her smile. However Compo must have forgotten that he overheard Nora saying this before

In the series 14 episode “Errol Flynn Used to Have a Pair Like That” when he thought she meant motorcycle riding gear. We meet Billy Hardcastle for the first time in this episode. He claims to be related to the fictional folk hero Robin Hood. Perhaps his claim is not so outlandish as legend suggests

That Robin Hood died at Kirklees Priory and has a grave at Nun Bank Wood near Mirfield, supposedly the resting place of Robin Hood. Compo takes his antique enameled bread bin to Auntie’s which she swaps for his Robin Hood outfit. Even in its chipped condition the bread bin would be worth about £50 today.

When the ladies are putting the sandwiches in the back of Billy’s van, the rear of the cafe is not the real cafe back entrance. Smiler is dressed as a woman. As the trio walk past he gives leaflets to some people passing by. They were not actors or paid background

Artists but a family who were fans of the show watching the filming and Alan Bell invited them to take part. Barry drops Glenda off at Edie’s and drives off, however as Edie and Glenda chat, Barry’s car is still beside them. In this episode the ladies’ coffee morning

Is at the cafe. There’s a full plate of cream cakes but Ivy whisks them away before anyone takes one. Pearl eventually got her own back on Ivy in the series 31 episode “Look Whose Wheels Come Off”. She managed to offer the biscuits around and not let Ivy even get one.

Compo wears the suit again that he bought to impress Nora in the series 19 episode “The Suit That Attracts Blondes”. ♪ [Music] ♪