Jimmy Perry

Jimmy Perry, who has died aged 93, created and cowrote, with David Croft, the BBC situation comedy Dad’s Army, which he based on his wartime experiences in the Home Guard, and which became one of the best-loved shows on television.

He also collaborated with Croft on other popular sitcoms including It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum,

Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang, M’Lord? Perry, the extrovert of the pair, invariably drew on personal experience: having served in the Home Guard as a teenager, he joined the wartime regular Army, was posted to Burma with the Royal Artillery and joined his unit’s concert party, which inspired It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

Demobbed, he trained as an actor and spent his holidays working as a Butlin’s Redcoat, stints that later yielded material for Hi-de-Hi! which, after a slow start, caught on, to the dismay of Butlins who had spent 20 years trying to bury their end-of-thepier image. Born September 20 1923, died October 23 2016