Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Sir David’s war secret
SIR David Jason is to front a Channel 4 documentary series about underground spies.
The 77-year-old has been secretly filming the project in between work on the fourth series of Still Open All Hours in Doncaster.
“I’ve just seen a rough cut of it and it’s fascinating,” the star says.
“It’s a bit different to what I usually do but I hope it’ll be as good as it looks so far.”
Channel 4 seemed to want to keep the news secret and wouldn’t give us many more details – but we suspect it won’t air until next year.
Thankfully, Sir David says: “I know Ian Fleming ended up creating James Bond from his knowledge of the secret service but there’s a whole other side involving real people fighting against oppression.
“There were literally little old ladies in France or Belgium sitting knitting by the railways who were secretly employed to share information about German troop movements.
“Some of the stories are incredibly moving, like the 21-year-old refugee Gabrielle Petit, who eventually got murdered by a German firing squad.
“And some are funny, like the one about this scruffy boffin Cecil Clarke who invented a bomb to try to eliminate Hitler’s right-hand man Himmler.
“But lots of the stories demonstrate the incredible human spirit people demonstrated amidst the horrors of war.”
Sir David has been busy in recent months. Aside from filming Open All Hours and this documentary, he recently fronted a celebration of Only Fools and Horses, where he looked back over classic episodes and told anecdotes on TV channel Gold.