Last Post and Pigeon

[Sheree]

Did Compo actually play his bugle?

 

[Rhi]

I think he played the bugle in an early episode. I can't remember which, it might have been a Blamire era episode. So maybe he was playing it for Last Post. Was he well enough, though?

 

[jakob1978]

Bill Owen didn't play the Bugle in Last Post and Pigeon, he was miming it...but he certainly could play it in real life. Alan Bell shares a story in Andrew Vine's book about the scene (one of the last he recorded)

I said "Can you blow your cheeks out?" because he was miming it, and he said, "Don't you start telling me how to play a bugle, I've been playing one for seventy years," and I said "It doesn' t look as though you're playing it, Bill," and he said. "Well, I am"

 

[Sheree]

Thanks. He played a bugle in "Spring Fever" I believe.

 

[Rhi]

You're bang on there, Jacob. I remember reading it, now!