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
Grandad (Only Fools and Horses) his wife Violet sometime before the war, and fathering a son, Reg. During World War II Grandad evidently served some time in the army as he told Del he was given a double-headed coin by a fellow soldier and his son Reg checked his blood group on his old army records, however he must have been demobbed before the end of war as he temporarily separated from his wife and had an affair with Trigger's grandmother Alice, while her husband Arthur was still fighting. During the episode "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Uncle", Uncle Albert (Buster Merryfield) shows Del a