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
David Jason Father Christmas in "Father Christmas and the Missing Reindeer", Rola Polar in "The Adventures of Dawdle the Donkey", "Angelmouse", and did voices in animated films including "Wombling Free" and "The Water Babies". In 1981, Jason found his most popular role, Del Boy Trotter in the BBC situation comedy "Only Fools and Horses", created by John Sullivan. Del-Boy is a wide-boy who makes a dubious living in Peckham, south London, trading in shoddy, stolen, and counterfeit goods. He is assisted by his brother Rodney (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Grandad (played by Lennard Pearce) and, in later episodes, Uncle Albert (played