When I was a wee lad, Patrick Cargill was ubiquitous. From
playing a psychopathic Number Two in the classic Prisoner episode Hammer
Into Anvil, to appearing in both Help! and the Magic Christian... which was a pretty big deal for a young Beatles fan.
It was only later that I discovered he had also played opposite Tony Hancock in
the brilliant Blood Donor and appeared in a brace of Carry On…
films too. But, more than anything, he was the rakish Patrick Glover in the ITV
sitcom Father, Dear Father.
Glover was an author, divorced and bringing up two teenage
daughters along with his housekeeper (always referred to as Nanny), and a large
St Bernard dog, HG (for H G Wells). The premise of the show was paper-thin, but it ran for 45 episodes over five years. Father, Dear Father was a huge success,
a defining and somewhat stereotyping role for Cargill, and the inevitable
spin-off movie followed. A couple of years after the series ended he was back
in a new sitcom, originally to be titled Take My Wives, but eventually
screened under the name the Many Wives of Patrick.
The success of Father, Dear Father led to Cargill
being offered the opportunity to record an album and several singles based
around the character of Patrick Glover. First came the 1969 album Patrick
Cargill Sings Father, Dear Father followed two years later by a 45, a vocal
version of the show’s theme tune, credited to Patrick Cargill And The Petticoat
Twins and, another two years after that, the festive Father Dear Father
Christmas.
He did not find being in the limelight easy, but like many
British comic actors, he was ‘big in Australia’, and gladly accepted an offer
to uproot and relocate ‘down under’ temporarily to make an Aussie version of Father,
Dear Father in 1978. he continued to make trips to the country and, on his final
visit there in 1994, he was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver, leading to
erroneous reports that he had died. Back in Britain. although no longer in
demand on television, he continued to work on the stage throughout the 1980s.
He passed away in a hospice, where he had been receiving care
after suffering a brain tumour, in May 1996 at the age of 77. he had continued
to act until he became too ill to do so, appearing in a touring production of
Michael Frayn’s Noises Off the previous spring. I had no idea
that he was gay: no one would have. Unlike many homosexual actors of the time
the press left him alone, never hinting (at least as far as I am aware) that he
was anything other than the slightly foppish heterosexual he often portrayed on
screen. Even when he died, obituaries made vague mention of the fact that he
had never married, but left it at that. Of course, being a trifle more sophisticated
I can now look back and see the signs… chief of which was his long-term relationships
with landscape gardener Vernon Page and, later, James Markowski.
By the way, in case those who recall the TV series had ever
wondered, Nanny (the Glover’s long-suffering, slightly scatty housekeeper, played
by Noel Dyson) had a ‘real’ name: Mrs. Harris.
Here are a couple of Patrick’s vocal performances for you.
First up is Father Dear, the opener from the 1969 album Patrick
Cargill Sings Father, Dear Father. Following that is the 1971 vocal version
of the theme from Father, Dear Father from Patrick Cargill And The
Petticoat Twins.
Very interesting, when I was 16 I ran away to London and hung around Piccadilly Circus with other runaway kids, one night we saw Patrick chatting up an 18 year old rent boy called Paul,the boy I was with said in his northern accent 'If he gets caught it won't be Father Dear Father it'll be Mother oh Mother!
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