Interview with Peter Sallis 1994
By Margaret Tillotson, Chairman of Summer Wine Appreciation Society.

When Summer Wine first started, did you audition for the part of Clegg?
No, in fact the author, I found out later, had asked me to play it.

Do you think the character has developed over the years?
No, it's exactly the same as it was.

Is there anything of Peter Sallis in Cleggy?
Well, yes, inevitably in a part of this kind. If I was playing (God forbid) "Othello" then I would hope not very much of me came through, but with a part like this it is inevitable.

What's your opinion of Roy Clarke's writing?
Oh well, I think it's marvellous. I'd done two things for him before "Summer Wine". One in particular (I can't remember the title) was in a series and was with Sheila Hancock. I and my sister (played by Megs Jenkins) ran a boarding house, a theatrical boarding house. Sheila and her partner came to stay. I can't really remember anything about it except that I was a transvestite. There was one scene Roy wrote for me where I got dressed up as a priest and gave a sermon in the sitting room to the two astonished people who were staying there. He wrote the sermon because we were under-running, and he wrote it in a night. I can't remember anything about it except that it was turning religion on its head, and it was extremely funny. In the very first episode of Last of the Summer Wine, there's the inevitable vicar, and the first time you see me is outside that little chapel, that doesn't exist anymore in Holmfirth. I offer him a cigarette and he accepts it, and I say something like "you haven't given it up yet then?" and he says "No, no - in my profession it wouldn't be good to be seen trying to live forever." Those little things, Compo going into the place with his hat on and Michael Bates saying "This is consecrated ground"  and Compo says - "Well I've got me wellies on." Roy's always been marvellous at those sort of things, and I personally think that it's a great pity we don't have a few more scenes like that now. We don't seem to have quite the same conversations that we used to.

Do you have any favourite episodes, and other than Clegg, do you have a favourite character?
I loved the one with the railway train - The Tender Behind or whatever it was called (FULL STEAM BEHIND). The two episodes of the hang-gliding one (WILD BLUE YONDER) I thought was marvellous. There have been several. Last year, the Christmas one I thought was a charmer (WELCOME TO EARTH). Oh yes, there have been many. "When you take a good bite out of Yorkshire.." which we did with Michael Oldridge, I thought was another.

Did you always want to become an actor?
No, I never gave it any thought till during the war when I was in the RAF and an instructor at Cranwell. There was a man on the course I was teaching called Peter Bridge. He was a young man and I was a young man, and he came up to me one day and asked if I'd like to play the leading part in Noel Coward's Hay Fever which he was going to direct and produce at the YMCA for three nights. I said "Yes I'd love to." So I did it and I was bitten, and the fact that when the war was over I could have gone back to the bank, meant that I had a choice. I had something I could do, but I thought that this (acting) was much more agreeable, and so it turned out.

What do you do to relax?
Drink!!

What are your thoughts on having an Appreciation Society?
I think its fine, a noble effort. I think you put a lot of energy and work into it and I hope its rewarding as far as you are concerned, as you're the people doing all the work.

We've lost many of our favourite characters with the passing of Michael Bates, John Comer, Joe Gladwin and of course Michael Oldridge. Could you tell us something of what it was like working with them?
The most difficult one easily was Michael Bates. I'd known Michael for years before we'd started to do this, I known him for about 20 years I suppose - and I'd worked in the theatre with him on at least two or three occasions. Michael was a perfectionist and he had to have everything absolutely right, which is fine except that when you're doing something like this perfectionism doesn't really quite enter into it. You haven't got the time. I remember one day when we were doing a pub scene. Norman Wisdom tried to do the same thing with us the other day - to give the barman a fiver and to be given the right change for the five drinks he was buying. Alan Bell said "No  we haven't got time (laughter) Michael was exactly the same. There was one scene I remember - exactly the same situation with a barman - and Michael had some change in his hand (Peter laughs) and he insisted on putting this money down on the counter and then the man would take it away, work the machine and give him back the change during which time nothing was happening. Bernard Thompson, who was directing, became really quite apoplectic with Michael. He was a lovely man Michael he was so good. John Comer, I thought, delivered the lines better than anybody in the show has, before or since. Nobody has given the lines the same weight and with the same telling effect without doing anything, which was what John was brilliant at. I don't think he knew how good he was, quite honestly.

It seemed to come so naturally?
Yes it was extraordinary. Joe Gladwin, well - I mean he was just Joe. He was terribly sweet and I was fascinated towards the end of his life to learn about him being a Knight of the Catholic Church. He and Matt Busby - there were about four of them all in different walks of life - and they were the only ones. It was quite extraordinary you wouldn't have expected him to be a Knight of the Roman Catholic Church any more, I suppose, than you would have thought of Matt Busby being one. The one that people tend to forget is Blake Butler (Wainwright the librarian). He'd already left the programme when he died, but he did die rather young and it was very sad. I'm sorry that he (Roy) dropped those two characters, but I know there was only a limited amount he could do with them.

They seem to have been resurrected as Howard and Marina.
I suppose that's the modern equivalent.

(to be continued)

Reproduced with kind permission of Summer Wine Appreciation Society.