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
Christmas by medium film tax benefits). Before 1962, when "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" premiered, true Christmas specials made for TV were either adaptations of stories such as "A Christmas Carol" (with live actors), or the Nativity Story, or episodes of variety shows highlighting Christmas music. They were often hosted by such celebrities as Perry Como, Jane Wyatt, or Florence Henderson. (A notable exception was "The Spirit of Christmas" in 1950, which, although featuring an appearance by Alexander Scourby, who also narrated, starred the Mabel Beaton Marionettes.) This all changed once variety shows began dying out in the late 1980s and Rankin-Bass began producing