Last of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard

Pte Pike joins Dad's Army in Heaven...and we will never forget his name

-  Matt Nixson

THE passing of Ian Lavender at the age of 77 means the last of the revered Walmingtonon-Sea Home Guard has now reported for celestial duty.

The Birmingham-born actor died on Friday morning, his agent Hilary Gagan confirmed yesterday.

Ian had been ill for some time - and his wife, choreographer and stage director Michelle Hardy, plus sons Sam and Daniel were by his side at the end.

His legacy will be the hapless Dad's Army character. So unlikely to strike terror into the hearts of any invading Germans, he and his platoon entertained millions of television viewers for half a century - enjoying a very special place in British popular culture.

Ian was just 22 and fresh from drama school, the youngest of the otherwise venerable cast, when he was paid £51 and 19 shillings to play 17-year-old Private Frank Pike.

His character might not have been officer material- but neither was the star anything like the perennially exasperated Captain Mainwaring's "stupid boy".

Ian was a talented and versatile actor, who in appeared countless stage and TV shows after finding fame as the guileless mummy's boy, whose knitted scarf - a keen Aston Villa supporter, he chose claret and blue deliberately embellished his khaki battledress.

Michelle He was the last surviving member of the Dad's Army cast after the death of Frank Williams, who joined the show in its third series in 1969 as the tetchy Rev Timothy Farthing and died aged 90 in June 2022.

Clive Dunn, who played Lance Corporal Jones, 92, died in 2012 while Bill Pertwee air raid warden Hodges - died in 2013 at 86.

Arthur Lowe, 66, was killed by a heart attack in 1982 and John Le Mesurier, 71, Sergeant Wilson, died the following year.

Arnold Ridley, who played Private Godfrey, died in 1988 aged 88.

Jimmy Beck, who played the spiv Private Walker, the role creator Jimmy Perry had envisaged for himself, died aged 44 in 1973.