Till Death Us Do Part

Alf Garnett...1960s working man incarnate or foul mouthed caricature?  He came onto my tv screen in the middle of the decade unlike anyone else I'd encountered in my relatively sheltered childhood.  A working class man who voted tory...even at my tender age I knew something about politics thanks to my family, so Alf definitely seemed a bit odd.  He loved Winston Churchill and the Queen and hated Harold Wilson and (especially) his son in law Mike ("that randy Scouse git").

The show's creator and writer Johnny Speight always stated that he intended Alf's views to be seen as reactionary and reprehensible, but I knew many people who agreed with Mr Garnett; perhaps a testimony to the acting skills of Warren Mitchell who at times made Alf not just a boorish and bigoted character, but someone who was all too human.  The other main characters in the programme were the aforementioned Mike played by Anthony Booth, his wife Rita (Una Stubbs) and of course Alf's wife Else (Dandy Nichols). Each of them seemed to consider Alf a pathetic, unlovable character and his raging against Mike and Rita's similarly aggressive if polar opposite views on 1960s morals and events kept the creative tension going.

However, Else was what some might term today more of a "passive aggressive" character. Some of the most poignant moments arrived after Alf and his wife had been arguing about something (him struggling to say anything towards the end apart from "listen!"). These scenes would end with Alf shouting " I'm going down the pub!".  And why not...sometimes going for a drink or three has definitely helped me to keep just about sane!