Buster Merryfield and Horses" in January 1985, as the former seafaring Albert Gladstone Trotter, known as Uncle Albert, who was Grandad Trotter's globetrotting long-lost younger brother, and who was known for Uncle Albert's catchphrase of "During the war..." The character took over the role of senior citizen member of the Trotter family from Lennard Pearce, who played Grandad, after Pearce died unexpectedly in December 1984. Coincidentally, nine months earlier, in March 1984, Merryfield appeared in two episodes of a "Shroud for a Nightingale" alongside Lennard Pearce. He did much work for various charities, notably the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He wrote his
How the Ghosts Stole Christmas [and] classic comedy episodes including, "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas." DVD.net called "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" a "classic" standalone episode. "SFX" named the episode the sixth best "SF [Sci-Fi] & Fantasy Christmas Episodes" and noted that it was full of "classic lines, some neat tricks". Zack Handlen from "The A.V. Club" gave the episode a largely positive review and awarded it a grade of an A. He noted that the episode was written in a similar manner to the earlier, Carter-penned "The Post-Modern Prometheus". Handlen wrote that both entries "have a gleeful, everybody-gets-out-okay-in-the-end vibe". He, however, concluded that the