Brian Wilde

In 1973, he starred as a different kind of gaoler in the second episode of Seven of One, a series of seven individual stories, all of which starred Ronnie Barker. In the episode, entitled "Prisoner and Escort", Wilde played Mr Barrowclough, one of two prison officers whose job it is to escort Barker's character Fletcher across the moors to his prison (the other was Mr Mackay, played by Fulton Mackay). The episode proved successful and a series was commissioned by the BBC, titled Porridge. Wilde reprised his role as the timid and eager-to-please Barrowclough. Porridge which ran until 1977, was a great success, with a film version being made in 1979.

Wilde gained and established another role in 1976, when he took over from Michael Bates as the third member of a trio of old men in the BBC sitcom Last of the Summer Wine. The character, Walter "Foggy" Dewhurst, was a determined ex-army man who planned the group's misadventures with military precision and a painstaking eye for detail. Wilde saw the long-running series gather momentum and continue its success; he stayed with the series for nine years, before leaving in 1985 to work on other projects. Foggy was written out of the series—it was said that he had moved to Bridlington to take over the family egg-painting business—and was replaced by Michael Aldridge as Seymour Utterthwaite until 1990.

When Aldridge left Last of the Summer Wine, Wilde returned as Foggy in 1990. He stayed until 1996, when,during the preparations for series 19, suffering from shingles,he felt he should leave as his condition was not completely cleared and shingles is notorious for reappearing, even more painfully. Frank Thornton was invited to join the cast as "Truly of the Yard". The 1997 Christmas special "There Goes The Groom!" was made to introduce Thornton's character.

Producer Alan J. W. Bell said, "Since then, Brian has been invited to return many times, but says he feels he has 'done it now' and doesn't want to go back. I am sure that one day he will make an appearance – we still have his costume standing by", but Wilde never did return to the role and the show ran for another thirteen years, the last series being filmed the year after Wilde died.

He featured in "The Fear Merchants", an episode of ABC's The Avengers, in January 1967. In this he played Jeremy Raven, a ceramics manufacturer caught up in a sinister plot to get rid of the competition. In 1978, Wilde voiced the public information film series Play Safe, highlighting the dangers of overhead power lines to children.

He also supplied the voice of the magician Meredith in the children's animated series Alias the Jester, Shortie the Giraffe in Coco Pops and narrated an animated series, Microscopic Milton, about a microscopic little chap who lives in a clock on the mantelpiece, in the parlour of the house that belongs to a lady called Mrs. Witherspoon. Wilde starred in his own BBC series in 1988, Wyatt's Watchdogs, as retired soldier Major Wyatt who forms his own neighbourhood watch group. As a stuffy ex-army member who leads a motley bunch of comic characters, Wyatt was quite similar to Foggy. The programme, which co-starred Trevor Bannister, was written by Miles Tredinnick and ran for one series of six episodes.

Wilde suffered a fall in January 2008 from which he never recovered. He died in his sleep on the morning of 20 March 2008 at his home in Ware, Hertfordshire and was survived by his wife Eva, their son Andrew and daughter Sarah.

His son, Andrew Wilde, had been film editor on Last of the Summer Wine from the mid-1990s until the final episode in 2010, working initially on many of the episodes that had starred his father and later on the Frank Thornton editions.[3][4]