Gordon Wharmby

Regular actor in 'Last of the Summer Wine'

Gordon Wharmby, actor: born Salford, Lancashire 6 November 1933; married; died Abergele, Conwy 18 May 2002.

Clad in greasy overalls, Gordon Wharmby became a familiar sight to Last of the Summer Wine viewers over 20 years as the tinkering car enthusiast Wesley Pegden, the brain behind various dubious inventions.

After Thora Hird had joined the cast as Wesley's nagging wife, Edie, and the subsequent death of the actor Joe Gladwin (who had played Wally Batty), the Pegdens took over the mantle of Nora and Wally Batty, as Edie tried to smarten up Wesley and encourage him to present a more sophisticated image.

This fame came to Wharmby late in life and he continued his day job as a painter and decorator in the Manchester area for several years after making his début in a 1982 episode of the writer Roy Clarke's long-running, gentle sitcom centred on three old men, Compo (Bill Owen), Clegg (Peter Sallis) and Foggy (Brian Wilde) in a Yorkshire Pennines village who reminisce about the past and become embroiled in whimsical adventures.

In an ever-increasing supporting cast, Wharmby often found himself driving the storylines because of Wesley's penchant for gadgetry. Perhaps the character's greatest hour was informing Compo, Clegg and Foggy, in the 1984 Christmas special, that he had discovered a rare Loxley Lozenge. This led to much waxing lyrical on the part of Foggy as he tried to guess what exactly this was, and he concluded that it must be a medieval cough sweet (it turned out to be a classic car).

Wharmby appeared as Wesley in 16 series between 1985 and 2002 after impressing Roy Clarke with his characterisation. The writer took some of the actor's own characteristics and tailored them to Wesley.

Born in Salford, Lancashire, in 1933, Wharmby had never acted professionally. He did national service in the RAF and worked as a painter and decorator while gaining stage experience with Oldham Repertory Theatre and taking occasional bit-parts in programmes such as Bill Brand (1976), The One and Only Phyllis Dixey (starring Lesley-Anne Down as Britain's First Lady of Striptease, 1978) and Coronation Street (as a milkman, 1982).

He was then auditioned for a one-line part in Last of the Summer Wine, which had begun in 1973, filmed in and around the Yorkshire village of Holmfirth. The producer, Alan J.W. Bell, was so impressed with Wharmby's "natural" performance that, instead, he cast him in the more prominent role of the bumbling Wesley Pegden for another episode and Clarke later wrote him in as a regular. Although initially overawed by working with Thora Hird as his screen wife from 1986, Wharmby eventually started giving her "notes", to the veteran actress's great amusement.

On television, Wharmby had small roles in the Troy Kennedy Martin nuclear thriller Edge of Darkness (1985), Brookside (as Tony Hetherington, 1985), All Creatures Great and Small (1988), A Very British Coup (1988), Agatha Christie's Poirot (1990), Heartbeat (1994) and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996). He had been due to start recording the 23rd series of Last of the Summer Wine this week.

Anthony Hayward