The Hi-de-Hi! Cast Then and Now — Who is still with us?

Classic British telly, and the people who made it — where they are now. The Tannoy crackles into life over an empty ballroom, and out on a windy Essex beach a Punch and Judy man is glaring at somebody's children. Maplins holiday camp at Crimpton-on-Sea never existed, but for eight years half this country believed in it completely. Hi-de-Hi! ran on BBC One from a pilot on New Year's Day 1980 to its last episode on 30 January 1988 — nine series, fifty-eight episodes, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the pair who had already given Britain Dad's Army. Perry had genuinely been a Butlin's Redcoat, the camp on screen was Warner's real site at Dovercourt near Harwich, and in 1984 it took the BAFTA for Best Comedy. Forty-six years on, two of the nine are still with us. WHERE THEY ARE NOW Su Pollard played Peggy Ollerenshaw, the chalet maid who only ever wanted to be a Yellowcoat — and she is now 76 in August 2026. In 1974 she came second on Opportunity Knocks to a singing Jack Russell; in 1986, still mopping floors at Maplins, she took "Starting Together" to number two in the charts. She went on into You Rang, M'Lord? and Oh, Doctor Beeching!, and her new memoir Fully Charged is published this month. Jeffrey Holland played Spike Dixon, the eager junior comic, and turned 80 on 17 July 2026. He is one of very few actors in all three great Perry and Croft ensembles, and since 2013 he has toured a one-man play about Stan Laurel, ... And This Is My Friend Mr Laurel. David Griffin took over the camp as Squadron Leader Clive Dempster in 1984, later became Emmet in Keeping Up Appearances, and is 83. THOSE WE'VE LOST Simon Cadell, the gentle Professor Fairbrother, married David Croft's daughter Rebecca and died of lymphoma on 6 March 1996, aged only 45. Leslie Dwyer, a child of the music halls who played child-hating Mr Partridge, died Boxing Day 1986, aged 80. Diane Holland, the ballerina behind Yvonne, danced those ballroom scenes with arthritic hips and never let it show; she died 24 January 2009, aged 78. Felix Bowness, Fred Quilley in all fifty-eight episodes, died 13 September 2009, aged 87. Paul Shane, the Rotherham miner who became Ted Bovis, died 16 May 2013, aged 72. Barry Howard, the wonderfully still Barry Stuart-Hargreaves, died 28 April 2016, aged 78. Ruth Madoc, whose "Hello campers!" nobody else will ever own, died 9 December 2022, aged 79. A question for you. Did you ever stay at a holiday camp yourself — Butlin's, Warner's, Pontins, one of those chalets with the little hooks by the door? Tell us below; we read them all. And do subscribe — there is a new one every week. A note on sources: ages, dates and figures here were checked against publicly available records as of August 2026, and any amounts mentioned are estimates. The narration on this channel is AI-assisted. RETRO TELLY is made as a respectful tribute to British television and to the performers and families behind it.