Many thanks to all the fans who took part in our super competition to win the unique and lovely pin badges depicting characters from the series.

A grand total of 133 people from England, America, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa emailed the Holmfirth-based website - and faced the difficult challenge of having to name their favourite LOTSW character.

A large number emailed the Summer Wine site complaining about the difficult challenge - how could they single out just one character from such a cast of favourites!  That was true so we agreed to settle for a few lines about ONE of your favourites!

We were delighted with all the entries and had a great deal of fun reading all the lovely comments.

Thank goodness we decided not to pick out the winner based on the choice of actor - how could we do that!. In the end we short listed about 30 entries - and then picked the winner at random.

LOTSW enthusiast Terry Evans is the winner of our competition and we have emailed him to ask for his postal details.

As usual, we have published Terry's entry below, plus a few of the other short listed  ones.

Thanks again for emailing the Summer Wine website 
Best Wishes, Patrick
Editor Summer Wine Online
Holmfirth, England

This one is simple, my favorite LOTSW actor is Peter Sallis.  Peter has talent un-matched  as an actor.  He can tell the audience what his charactor is feeling with the tone in his voice, or his expression, or even his body language to the point that you forget that he is acting. You believe he actually is Norman Clegg. That is what makes LOTSW so great the cast as a whole is good, Peter is great.

Terry Evans

I love all the actors!!! the show would not be the same if any of them were missing!!!!!!

Tell them Scott from Texas said Hi!

 
My favorite actor is Juliette Kaplan.  As Pearl, she has a talent for putting just the right _expression on her face when Howard is up to no good.  I don't know how she purses her lips the way she does, but it's priceless.  With one curled lip, she manages to put Howard right in his place. I also enjoy her scenes with the ladies over tea, discussing husbands.  Bravo, Juliette Kaplan!

Linda Shockley, Glasgow, Delaware, USA.

 
My favourite Last of the Summer Wine actor is Mr.Peter Sallis. He is a man of many talents and has proven his abilities in so many different venues over the years. During his long and varied career he has appeared on stage, in musicals, films, and on television. He is able to make you laugh, cry, think, and feel with his portrayals. I can only say thank you Mr.Sallis.

Long live Norman Clegg.
Leslie Gautieri

All the characters are good but I think Marina is one of the funniest. She  is always dressed to the nines.  I think the show where she sold Howard  some glue that just happened to have a hole in it and the got stuck together is one of my favorites.  She always turns up at the most inopportune times.

What a hoot!
Glen McMillan

The loudest voice on the show, she keeps everyone in line. She has the cleanest establishment in town and you best not even mention, creepy crawlies or sickness in her presence and always pay up front. She has the respect or fear of all her customers and puts "the boys" in their place,
Ivy is a force to be reckoned with whether in the cafe or at coffee hour with the girls. She's a love.

Suzhowell

Norman Clegg is my favourite Summer Wine character.  It's partly because he's been there from the beginning of the series.  He's a dependable and supportive friend, even when he gets involuntarily involved in Howard's dealings with Marina.  A person could do a lot worse than have Cleggy for a neighbor.

Jeanette Johnson
USA

Dear Friends,
Asking a long-time fan to choose a favourite from such an incredible cast of wonderful characters is as cruel as asking a mother to choose her favourite child.
So I will try, instead, to propose that the greatest, most dramatic and natural actor in LOTSW is the landscape of Holmfirth and environs.  It was that which first drew me into the series and which has since woven it so deep into my heart.

Jim Farrell
Thunder Bay, Ontario (Canada)

It is hard to single out anybody as a favourite because they are all like family,but I think Peter Sallis is my choice. As well as the wonderful character of "Norman Clegg "I have really enjoyed Mr.Sallis' performances in Wallace and Grommit and Wind in the Willows as well Dracula,Prince of Darkness, which I have on tape as well as my Summer Wine collection.

All the Best,
Gary Gladney, Portugal, Canada.

Hi folks.
Having been a fan of the series from it's inception, and distraught at the lack of availability of the videos, tapes and DVDs here in South Australia I did a search in Google in desperation for a touch of LOTSW, and I found you! You are now book marked, BEWARE! Here is my entry for those fabulous pins.
I love all of the characters, of course, all played by great actors, but I think I have always had a soft spot for Clegg, so marvellously played by that most versatile actor, Peter Sallis. His approach to the role results in a creation that is all too human and familiar to all of us. I suppose, in many ways, I identify a lot with Clegg, not least because I hated sport as school as much as he did, and I am, like the lads, a middle aged redundant. So, it has to be Peter for me, for his wonderfully gentle humoured Clegg.

Now, give us a cuppa tea and something sticky for a bun.

Barry Lenny
South Australia

I live in Yukon, OK in the United States.  I watch LOTSW on PBS Monday through Thursday.  My favorite character, has to be Compo.  I love everything about him from the holes in his pants, his wellies, all the way up to his ragged green hat.  I love his impromptu songs to Nora, and the times she has hurt his feelings and made his shoulders hang low, I have felt his rejection and become angry at her.  I love the way he still used thee, instead of saying you.  He definately hooked me into watching a 30+ years old BBC show.  I have even gotten my husband and 13 year old daughter hooked.

Sincerely,
Jeri Bartels

My favourite person is Compo. He is the child that lives inside of all of us. One who sees only stars and rainbows and not the gloom of the real world. Someone who loves friends and the last of the summer wine.

Barbara Wingfield

Foggy Dewhurst is my favourite LOTSW character.  In his clever maniacal ways, Foggy easily became the inept leader of his band of brothers, Compo and Cleggy.  Just recall the episodes of Foggy reflecting on his heroic hand to hand encounters with the Japanese during WW II, his well intended but misguided outlook on life, and his diabolical ability in dreaming up new follies to torment his companions and townsfolk, and you will know why he is my favourite.

Lang Soo-Hoo
Gaithersburg, Maryland
USA

While there can be no doubt that the greatest of all actors in the series was Bill Owens, my favorite actor has been Brian Wilde.  "Foggy Dewherst" is so lovable that no matter what misquided adventure he leads "Clegg" and "Compo" into you know no one would be unkind toward him.  I have always loved that as Foggy begins to scheme you can see the disaster start to build to a hilarious conclusion.

Ray Herndon
Conway, SC USA

Despite the age-gap and the jump across the pond, this actor has the
ability to appeal to people of all ages and countries.  My favourite actor
from "Last of the Summer Wine" is Frank Thornton.  His skill and
finesse in his craft means that in the course of an evening he can convince
me that he is Captain Peacock as well as Herbert Truelove.  "Truly" he
is an adept actor and a skilled comedian.

June Karweick
Escanaba, MI

My favorite Last of the Summer Wine actor is Peter Sallis for his sweet, simplistic, avuncular style of frumpy demeanor that enables him to emote the kind yet quasi-curmudgeon characterization earning him the role of Norman Clegg.  Unlike his vocal claymation portrayal of Wallace, Sallis makes a better, fuller detailed figure of Clegg to go with the voice.
Sallis is Clegg as Leonard Nimoy is Spock.  To be the sage of Holmfirth,
Clegg needed Sallis.

Charles Watson

My favourite actor in the LOTSW is the actor who portrays Howard.  He always plays the same haunted, driven character is is slightly desperate but never wanting to leave the wife, hearth, and home.... even while dating Marina. He is an actor who has never veered from his portrayal.   Always in character even his nuances, smiles, and twinkle in the eye tells me that he knows how to portray this person from every vantage point.

William D.Moore
Martinsburg
United States of America

Foggy is undoubtedly the best Third man I have seen
on the programme. He acts so Thick and is so obviously
obsessed with his past Army career, at which even he
does not know exactly what area of the Army he was in.
However, he was a Corporal Sign Writer, and if he was to
be believed, a Para, a Commando and accomplished in
Karate, judo and everything else.
He's my choice.             

Bill Craig

I would like to enter your contest to win the pin badges from the stars of Last of the Summer Wine. My favourite actor was and still is Bill Owen (Compo) as not many people would do all their own stunts he was just superb in everything he did, I loved the one where he was fired from a cannon just wonderful but he had so many great stories. I was very sad to hear that he died in 1999 12th July to be exact but it made it special for me as that is my birthday so I will never forget such a wonderful man and actor.

My dream is to one day come to England to visit the set hopefully it will happen sometime soon.

Many thanks
Shirley Gray
Wellington 
New Zealand

Without hesitation, Compo was our favourite actor.  The entire cast is nothing short of tremendous and my wife and I do not miss an episode when it is aired in Kentucky, USA, on Sunday evenings after Keeping up appearances. Compo, Cleggy and Truly, along with the rest of the cast outshine American comedy by miles, yet still remain as a clean, non-vulgar and very relaxing experience and we look forward to it every week.

Thank you LOSW for airing positive values on American television.
Mike & Carolyn Canada
Kentucky