First of the Summer Wine original series making an appearance in the prequel. With the success of "Last of the Summer Wine", the BBC approved a new series which Roy Clarke would carry over characters of the original show. With the new series, Clarke hoped to show the lives of his characters as they were in the "first summer" of their lives, as opposed to the last summer depicted in "Last of the Summer Wine". While there would still be the "shadow of the Grim Reaper" hanging over them, this time it would be because of World War II, not due to their old age.
Last of the Summer Wine (series 3) play this role twice: between 1976 and 1985 and then again from 1990 until 1997, when he was forced to leave due to health problems. The third series was released on DVD in region 2 as a combined box set with series 4 on 26 July 2004. A box set featuring just series 3 was released for region 1 on 11 March 2008. The trio in this series consisted of: Foggy (1976-1985, 1990-1997) Gordon Simmonite (1976) (Only made a few appearances in this series) Miss Moody (1976) (Only series this character appeared in) Big Malcolm Simmonite (Only series this character