Today we have an article as a celebration of Buster Merryfield or as we also know him Uncle Albert. Of course Buster was thrown in the deep end as Lennard was sadly lost during the early filming of Series 4. Scripts have since been found to prove that Uncle Albert was quickly written into the series to make some sense of the scripts to follow. Once again, no one but John Sullivan could of done it so well.
Buster Merryfield, joins Only Fools and Horses – not an easy start
He had a very difficult start to his Only Fools and Horses career. If you aren’t aware of the reason he joined Only Fools and Horses then don’t miss the scoop of the decade. Perry called it the Holy Grail, the most staggering thing he had come across for years. I can now share with you what Perry was stunned to come across back in 2013
Buster Merryfield had been selected as the new character, most of the scenes for the episode had to be re-shot. It is widely believed that the original scenes with Lennard Pearce have been destroyed. The only scene that was left alone to remain in the episode was of Mike looking up at the trotters from the seller of The Nag’s Head. All other scenes were re-shot.
Whatever the fate of the original tapes, hardly anything from them exists. A few ultra-rare shots can be seen below of the original scene from outside the court.
The original script of “Hole in One” but the “Grandad version”
Additionally a few years later we then had another remarkable insight into the Hole in One Grandad episode.
Lost scene with Buster in Class of 62
Buster Merryfield – Loved his football and boxing
Steve Headland recently contacted me with some further information on Buster.
Harry ‘Buster’ Merryfield was born on 27 November 1920 in Battersea, London and sadly passed away on 23 June 1999. He was given the name Buster by his grandfather after he weighed 9 pounds when he was born.
Buster in real life was a non drinker and non smoker unlike his character in the show. He was the British schoolboy boxing champion in 1936. In his younger years, Buster was a keen amateur footballer and a Millwall fan, regularly attending games at The Den. He only became a professional actor in 1978, when he was 57 years old. In later life when he moved to Bournemouth, he then became a fan of their football team, attending many home matches.
Buster did much work for various charities, mainly the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He did make various pantomime appearances during the 1990’s. I met Buster in January 1992 while he was performing in a Cinderella pantomime and also again in July 1995 in Bournemouth town centre as he regularly was seen doing charity work. The photo of Buster below is when he was at A.F.C Bournemouth’s ground marking the white lines before a game.
Buster fell over at the British Comedy Awards in December 1997, while walking on stage to collect an award for David Jason for his part in Only Fools and Horses. Despite cutting his forehead, he continued on stage to collect the award.
From my experiences when meeting Buster when I as younger, I always remember not only him talking about football, but also being a very nice, kind and polite gentleman.
Below is a photo of myself with Buster in 1992 following a pantomime performance
Buster Merryfield Funeral was 20 years ago!
We lost Buster Merryfield over 20 years ago now. How time flies, but we were so sad to hear the news back on 23 June 1999.
I met Buster Merryfield several times as a Bournemouth local and he was always a pleasure to talk to. But Buster would never of expected that his local team would make it to the Premiership.
Buster Merryfield died in Poole General Hospital on 23 June 1999, as a result of a brain tumour. He was born in Battersea, south-west London, in 1920, but would never reveal his real name.
Young Buster Merryfield
Buster Merryfield wasn’t know for his acting though for most of his life. He was better know as a bank manager for NatWest. 40 years he worked in banking until he retired.
It was in the eighties he started to have a breakthrough in acting. The extremely rare video featuring both a young Buster Merryfield (Uncle Albert) and Lennard Pearce (Grandad) were in the same drama show called Shroud in a Nightingale For those of you who are interested the video was made by Watchword Video in 1984. Total running time is 250 minutes – yes 250! Directed by John Gorrie. Produced by John Rosenberg. Catalogue numbers are WW8122 & WW8123.
For more details on the time Buster Merryfield worked with Lennard Pearce visit this article
Don’t miss this article
Albert. No, I was home for a good while on medical grounds. We’d bin up in the North Sea laying mines. Well on our way back we… well we hit a mine.
Rodney. You hit one of your own mines??
Albert. Well it’s very difficult to remember where you put ‘em. I mean one bit of sea looks exactly the same as another. (INDICATING T.V/s) Anyway, I was back home when Jerry started all this saturation bombing. I was still with yer Aunt Ada then, we had a little house down in Parsons Grove.
Rodney. I don’t know how you stood it. I mean, death dropping out of the skies night and day.
Albert. Didn’t bother me and Ada. We used to fool the Germans.
Rodney. Fool the…..! How could you fool the Luftwaffe??
Albert. Well you see just outside in our backyard we had a little Anderson shelter. Whenever there was a night raid we used to go out to the shelter, switch all its lights on and leave the door wide open.
Rodney. (THINKS ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE) I know I’m gonna be sorry for asking you this, but if you switched all the lights on, then left the shelter door wide open, didn’t the German pilots see the light and drop a bomb on it?
Albert. Yes. But what they didn’t know was that me and your Aunt Ada weren’t in the shelter, we was hiding in the house! (SMILES PROUDLY AND TAPS HIS TEMPLE)
Rodney. Dear God – and we still won!
Albert. They nicknamed me the hero of Parsons Grove.
Rodney. Triffic!
DEL NOW ENTERS. HE IS NOT DRUNK, BUT HE’S HAD A FEW. HE CARRIES A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE
Del. Rodney, we’re going to Australia!
Rodney. I’ll just watch the end of this first.
I saw Buster selling his book outside a Coffee shop in Burley Hampshire. He came into the shop later and was such a genuine and down to earth man. I met him several months later in a queue for food at a Garden centre in Christchurch. I asked how his book selling had gone in Burley and he spoke to me like we were old friends. He was so interesting, engaging and friendly. My mother, who was in the queue with me, thought he was a friend of mine. Such was his manner. A true gent and a real loss at the time of his passing. He had such a real zest for life and probably felt cheated given his ambitions for the future.