Pet’s tales

★ AUF Wiedersehen, Pet actor Tim Healy has accused TV bosses of “political correctness gone mad” after they cut gags from re-runs, as we revealed yesterday.

The show followed seven British construction workers who leave to find work abroad.

★ It launched the careers of a string of actors, but where are they now? NADINE LINGE investigates.

Tim Healy

EX-WELDER Tim’s character, Dennis Patterson, was a bricklayer who became the group’s reluctant leader. Tim, 68, is now best known for playing Les/lesley in ITV comedy Benidorm and Gastric in Still Open All Hours. He was previously married to Denise Welch and the couple have son Matty, who is the lead singer of the 1975. In 2017, Tim revealed he had been left in a coma by a mystery illness but his son’s music had brought him out of it.

Jimmy Nail

BEFORE landing the role of loudmouthed brickie Oz, Jimmy, 66, worked in a glass factory and did time in prison for fighting. His real surname is Bradford – he got the nickname Nail after a six-inch spike went through his foot. After Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Jimmy had a music career, scoring a No1 with Ain’t No Doubt in 1992. He also had a hit with Crocodile Shoes, the title track of a mini-series in which he starred. Jimmy acted in detective TV series Spender and 1996 film Evita, opposite Madonna. Married with two kids, he came out of retirement to act and sing in a musical about Newcastle shipbuilders, written by

Sting, but was replaced by Joe Mcgann.

Pat Roach

HE played West Country bricklayer “Bomber” Busbridge. A professional wrestler as well as an actor, he also had roles as tough guys in films including James Bond flick Never Say Never Again and Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Pat was turned down as Darth Vader, but George

Lucas remembered him and cast him as villains in the Indiana Jones films.

He died from throat cancer in 2004, aged 67.

Kevin Whately

AS bricklayer Neville Hope he was an insecure but devoted husband. Kevin went on to star as the sidekick to John Thaw’s Inspector Morse, and later had his own spin-off show, Lewis. Now 69, he is married to actress Madelaine Newton, with whom he has two children. The couple live near Milton Keynes.

Gary Holton

GARY, who played womanising London joiner Wayne Norris, died from an overdose of morphine combined with alcohol in 1985, midway through the show’s second series.

He was 33.

Christopher Fairbank

AFTER playing Albert Moxey, Chistopher, 66, was a mugger in Tim Burton’s Batman and had roles in The Fifth Element and Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Most recently, he appeared in ITV’S Vera and Tom Hardy drama Taboo.

Timothy Spall

HIS electrician character, Barry Taylor, was dull but loveable. Timothy has since had huge success in film and TV, starring in the

Harry Potter films, The Damned United and The

King’s Speech. Now 63, he is married with three children, one of whom

– Rafe – is also an actor.

In 1996, Timothy was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, but is in remission.