Bye-di-bye

[Sean of the Shed]

Ruth Madoc dies at 79.

[Levin]

Oh that's sad. She was doing links and intros for Welcome Strangers on the Radio recently

[Paul S]

It's incredible to think just how popular Hi-De-Hi was back in the eighties. They were filming a new series whilst the another series was being shown for the first time. But that was when the BBC knew how to make comedy and the whole family would watch. I was amazed when I hear her away from Hi De Hi for the first time as she didn't have a Welsh accent.

[colchestersid]

My tenuous and slightly dull connection to Hi Di Hi is that our family car was used in one episode - the green Morris Traveller in this clip

Diane Holland - Hi De Hi (1986) - YouTube

We lived just along from where it was filmed in Dovercourt (Essex)

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Never watched the programme, and don’t know the deceased, but saw the news and my first thought was “there’ll be a thread on OTF with the title bye-de-bye”.

[Satchmo Distel]

I seem to recall her real accent being Welsh but not broad. Upper middle-class Welsh, as it were.

[Jah Womble]

Worked with Ruth Madoc back in the early nineties, and she was as delightful as one might expect. (She even made us all tea and cakes, bless her.)

RIP, Gladys.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Hi-de-Hi was one of the most perfectly written things that depicted how traditional class values dissolved after WW2, and how people at all levels struggled, in their own ways, to want that to happen but also fight to stay in their own comfortable places. It's exquisitely observed. And yes, Ruth was simply perfect in her role, right in the middle of it all.

[jwdd27]

I make it just four of the main cast left now - Geoffrey Holland (Spike, now 78), Su Pollard (Peggy, 73) and Yellowcoats Nikki Kelly (Sylvia, 71) and Linda Regan (April, 73).

There's also David Griffin (Squadron Leader Dempster, 79), who did 4 seasons (out of the 9) after the departure of Simon Cadell, but who somehow doesn't get regarded as a main cast member, certainly not by me - I probably stopped watching around the time of his arrival.

[sw2borshch]

Don't see it so much now, but there was a banner at the Riverside for years of Sir Ste Gibson where he looked like the bloke who was the ballroom dancing guy.