I called Ronnie The Guvnor. He loved acting, giving pleasure...and he passed that on to me

Actor David Jason on working with his comedy mentor & friend Ronnie Barker

- MARK JEFFERIES

Fifty years ago, the BBC broadcast the pilot of Open All Hours, the sitcom that would soon have 17 million viewers tuning in to watch the antics of miserly corner shop owner Arkwright and his errand boy Granville.

And now David Jason, who played Granville, has explained the secrets of the show and told how important his "mentor" Ronnie Barker, who played Arkwright, was to his early career.

David, who is 82 and in 2005 was knighted for services to acting and comedy, says that away from the Open All Hours set, he called Barker "The Guv'nor" and when Barker retired, he passed the "Guvnorship" to him.

He says: "Ronnie B was the head of the team and because he was such a nice man, and so creative, and very funny and stimulating in his own right, he passed that on to the rest of the cast.

"He loved showbiz, he loved acting, and he loved giving pleasure to people, and he passed that on to me, if you like.

"It was me that used to call Ronnie The Guv'nor and then when Ronnie retired he decided that he would hand over The Guv'norship, as he called it, to me. I was his apprentice - so if you ever see me you can either call me Sir David or just The Guv'nor, I don't mind."

His close friendship with Ronnie began in 1969, when he was cast in the sitcom Hark at Barker, taking the role as a 100-year-old gardener. Ronnie then cast him in a comedy called The Odd Job before they teamed up again most memorably in that corner shop from 1973.

Sir David says: "The reason I got to work with Ronnie on Open All Hours was because of the little bits that I had done in his other series.