IT’S TIME TO FLY
British TV mainstay Lynda Baron has died aged 82. A theatre dancer in her youth, she turned to acting and was already a recurring TV face when landing her biggest role as the buxom Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in popular BBC sitcom Open All Hours. Her character lived across the grocery owned by Ronnie Barker’s Arkwright, with his lust for her seemingly the only source of p-p-passion for the grumpy stutterer. Though they were informally engaged, she spurned his desires for marriage to the end. The Nurse Gladys character was so popular that a spin-off was proposed, but it never got off the ground.
Baron herself, though, would take flight later on. As is common for older stars who became beloved with millennials, Baron enjoyed a second wind via kid’s TV. Her Auntie Mabel in Come Outside, always with trusted pooch Pippin by her side, would hop into her polka-dotted plane each episode to travel somewhere and explain the finer details of everyday objects and creatures to children. The plane was so integral to each story that when time came to explain buses, Mabel and Pippin were forced to go on the bus because their plane wouldn’t start! She was perhaps the most famous flying Baron since that WWI/Peanuts chap.
Other roles of note include Doctor Who villain Captain Wrack in space race story Enlightenment and Jane Beale’s mother Linda in EastEnders. She reprised Nurse Gladys for the first two series of revival Still Open All Hours. With her death, you can add Oh No It’s Selwyn Froggitt to the tally of old programmes with no living main cast members. Tip of the hat to the DL forum collective for quite a few tidbits throughout this latest batch of obits as it turns out!
She was picked by three teams, marking a third hit for EastEnders theme Not Going in a Black Cab and a first for well-endowed Breast in Peace and old-school legend Drunkasaskunk. The twice-champion shockingly only got one hit with centenarian Clarissa Eden last year, thus has already exceeded his 2021 points total with a joker in hospice still to come.
Lynda Baron
29 March 1939 – 5 March 2022, aged 82
3 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 6 POINTS)