ary: Clive Dunn OBE; Actor who played the lovable, bumbling Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army

He will always be associated with the nervous shout of “Don’t Panic. Don’t Panic” in Dad’s Army as yet another crisis hit the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard. Clive Dunn was the loveable Corporal Jones, who was always first to volunteer for anything and was landed with all the horrible tasks. He fell into the river from a raft, crawled through tents and slept on the most uncomfortable hay when on night patrol. Dunn brought to the character a real sense of verve, love and a joyous charm that endeared the character to the sitcom’s 18 million viewers.

David Croft, who wrote Dad’s Army, recalled the casting of the series and confessed he was keen that a younger actor should play the elderly Corporal Jones and offered Dunn the part.

Dunn and John Le Mesurier (who was to play the sergeant), were both decidedly reluctant. Le Mesurier said to Dunn: “What do you think of this Home Guard thing? If you do it I’ll do it.” So began one of the most loveable television sitcoms ever produced by the BBC.

Dunn played Jones for nine years – 80 episodes on television, on film and then on radio. In fact, he was just 48 when he joined the series and played the role of the elderly butcher with endearing panache.

With judicious make-up, a grey wig and rimless glasses Dunn looked very much the old soldier. Jones had served with Lord Kitchener in the Sudan and much relished telling the pompous Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), as he gestured menacingly with a bayonet: “The Germans don’t like it up ’em!”

Clive Dunn attended Sevenoaks School in Kent and then the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre in London. From the early 1930s he played minor roles in films (notably in Will Hay’s Boys Will Be Boys in 1935) but was called up to serve in the Queen’s Own Hussars in the war.

He spent four gruelling years as a prisoner of war in labour camps in Austria but with typical decency he once commented: “Some of the nicest chaps I met were the German guards.”

Work in the theatre was not easy in the post-war years and Dunn appeared in revues, summer shows and pantomimes. He was a leading light of the Players Theatre in London, where his tour-de-force was a song called The Ghost of Benjamin Binns. In 1956 Dunn got his first break on television when he appeared in early Hancock’s Half Hour.

He also got cast playing older roles – once being cast as Thora Hird’s father, despite her being ten years older.

He also played the old and much put-upon Mr Johnson in ITV’s Bootsie and Snudge alongside Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser. That was followed by an appearance in The Avengers with Patrick Macnee and Honour Blackman.

In 1968 he joined the cast of Dad’s Army for the very first episode. The writing was straight-forward and never indulged in violence or unnecessary gimmicks.

All the actors moulded their characters and Dunn, in particular, made Jones a dithering, loveable gem.

Those long monologues in which he indulged – much to the fury of Captain Mainwaring – became classics and his sly underhand delivery of a pound of sausages to a special (female) client was done with a wink and a sly grin.

Then there was the drill: Dunn always ensured that he was ten seconds behind the platoon for every movement. Corporal Jones was one of television’s classic delights.

Dunn also hit the pop charts after he recorded in 1971 the somewhat saccharine Grandad. The video had Dunn singing from a rocking chair and surrounded by dewy-eyed school children – it went to Number One and was often seen on Top of the Pops over Christmas. He published his memoirs, Permission to Speak, in 1993.

The relationship between Arthur Lowe and Dunn was never an easy one. They held strong and very opposite political views and it is said when Dunn was awarded an OBE in 1975 that Lowe made it known he would only accept a more senior honour.

It will be the bumbling and loveable Corporal Jones for which Dunn will be remembered. David Croft recognised his talents immediately and wrote: “Clive was a funny man and was one of the few actors who could be genuinely creative in rehearsal. He would frequently ad lib around the script in a way that was hilarious.

“He would keep us all in fits of laughter.”

Dunn married Cilla Morgan in 1959. He retired 30 years ago to Portugal, where he painted, sketched the seascapes near his house. They had two daughters.

Alasdair Steven