A scarecrow duel and a child actor's memories of making the Worzel Gummidge television series

I've not finished with Worzel Gummidge yet, because I've discovered that The Laughing Stock YouTube channel has most of the episodes from the four series that Southern made between 1979 and 1981. There are lots of other good things on there too, so I have subscribed to it.

This extract comes from The Return of Dafthead in series 3. It illustrates the folk horror aspect of this version of Worzel that appeals to me.

Don't worry: Worzel doesn't die and does get his head back. The Crow Man is a benign deity, giving life too and overseeing the scarecrows.

I've also come across an episode of the Distinct Nostalgia podcast that interviews Jeremy Austin, who played the boy John in Worzel Gummidge. His sister Sue was played by Charlotte Coleman, who died aged only 33 having enjoyed great success as both a child and an adult acting in television and films.

Austin talks about his fortuitous casting, the fun of making the programmes and his eventual admission that he was not going to sustain an acting career as an adult.

Listening between the lines, Jon Pertwee was a perfectionist and could be hard to work with. But he never lost his temper with the children and made a point of introducing them to any guest stars himself to emphasise their importance to the show.

And it has to be said that Pertwee is superlatively good in Worzel Gummidge.

I'm also intrigued by when the series is set. It's clear from the cars and the children's clothes that it's not 1979 - and when Worzel tries to do away with Dafthead in another episode by dropping him off a bridge in front of a train, it is a steam train.

But nor is there anything to anchor the series in a precise decade. I like my nostalgia precise, but this diffuse approach may be more emotionally appealing.

A letter for Worzel Gummidge

To celebrate the 105th anniversary of Jon Pertwee's birth, here's a clip from Worzel Gummidge.

Geoffrey Bayldon is the Crow Man, the benign god of the scarecrows, and the children are Charlotte Coleman and Jeremy Austin.

Poor Worzel lost his heart to the heartless Aunt Sally, but he should have gone off with Dolly Clothes-Peg, who really loved him.

Talking Pictures TV have just run the four series of Worzel Gummidge, and they turned out to have a touch of darkness that appealed to me. Call it folk horror,

Yet I'm struck by how beautiful everything in this clip looks - it was shot by the great Wolfgang Suschitzky.

Jon Pertwee on playing Doctor Who and Worzel Gummidge

Interviewed in costume between West End performances of a Worzel Gummidge show, here is Jon Pertwee in 1982.

Six of the Best 903

"Take the train that derailed at Hatfield on 17 October 2000, a tragedy in which four people died. That led to huge media interest, massive upheaval on the railways, and, ultimately, as the renationalisation of Railtrack, whose failings had caused the crash. Yet more than twice as many people will have died on the roads that day. Nothing was written about those deaths." Chris Sharp asks why the government has accepted that it’s OK to kill or be killed on our roads.

Patrick Kidd experiences Christmas.in prison and meets the Revd Jonathan Aitken's in his new career as a chaplain.

"The reason some people got their collective knickers in a twist about Stormzy, and the BBC’s A Christmas Carol and Worzel Gummidge is because they are either ignorant or prejudiced, or both." Drew Gray on race and Christmas TV.

"Perhaps, for you, it was way back on the first day of the Premier League season that the doubts set in, when Raheem Sterling’s armpit was deemed offside in Manchester City’s game against West Ham." Rory Smith dissects the VAR system.

Bob Fischer celebrates the reissue of Usborne's book on ghosts.

Nicholas Whyte reminds us that the mother of Captain von Trapp's children was English. (Lord Bonkers adds: If she had lived they would have gone to boarding school and not been cavortin' round the Alps dressed in old curtains.)

Johnny Flynn: Detectorists

It is easy to be too busy admiring Detectorists to recognise what a fine song its theme is.

Johnny Flynn is the half-brother of Jerome Flynn, who had hits as half of Robson and Jerome, though how much of the singing he did on them has always been a topic for discussion.

He is also an actor, though he was far too handsome for Captain Dobbin, whom he played in ITV's Vanity Fair last year.

Back to admiring Detectorists... Mackenzie Crook's writing there gives me great hopes that he will find the right tone - at once comforting and disconcerting - for his new version of Worzel Gummidge, which is to be shown on BBC this Christmas.

Jon Pertwee: "A sort of British icon"

To celebrate Jon Pertwee's 100th birthday, Matthew Sweet chats to 'Gotham' star Sean Pertwee about his father's legacy as the third Doctor. The two of them were filming for an upcoming box set.

I can also recommend the documentary about Jon Pertwee's career that Sean has narrated for BBC Radio 4. Catch it while it is available.

Jon Pertwee was my Doctor and it was a great era, though Roger Delgado and the Brigadier had a great deal to do with that too.

Worzel Gummidge was also wonderful - at once comforting and unsettling.

I remember liking The Navy Lark as a small boy and it is now a staple of BBC Radio 4 Extra. I struggle with it today, but it is clear the audience was having a whale of a time.

Pertwee, who taught escape techniques for naval intelligence during the war, was a remarkable man and part of a remarkable generation.