Did Foggy ever leave the UK?

C

chris

Dedicated Member
I am wondering if Foggy ever got to leave the UK in WW11 ,or did he spend it at some tucked away barrack doing his sign writing with his well sharpened pens.He spoke of many actions but did he get these from listening to other soldiers either way this has not been discussed before so any ideas folks?
 
I think Roy decided Foggy's real name should be Walter in honour of Walter Mitty. He probably spent the war in the UK but in his mind he helped liberate Burma
 
Very good question Chris, you would have to think that Foggy probably never left the UK and never saw any action. I could imagine him picking up the stories about Burma from listening enviously to men who had been there and therefore we hear him talking about insects so big they could fly off with your helmet or seeing spiders as big as dinner plates.
We had a Walter Mitty type character in an office where I worked one time and he could spoof for Ireland, but still his stories were so fantastic and so well made up we loved to hear them.
 
We had one here to, John Wayne . He played so many war hero's, that he began to act as if he were one.
Joe
 
JO said:
We had one here to, John Wayne . He played so many war hero's, that he began to act as if he were one.
Joe
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Ha Ha! Yes it did go to his head a bit, eh?

I remember my uncles telling their stories around the dinner table at my grandparent's house, and they always seemed to get a bit bigger each time. ;D
 
I also don't believe that Foggy was in Burma during the war. In fact I strongly believe that his bad leg didn't allow him to go to war as much as he wished to go there. I am sure he wished he was there. He must have convinced himself he was.
 
Compo said:
I also don't believe that Foggy was in Burma during the war. In fact I strongly believe that his bad leg didn't allow him to go to war as much as he wished to go there. I am sure he wished he was there. He must have convinced himself he was.
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Have I missed something here, I didn't know Foggy had a bad leg I don't think it was mentioned in any episodes
 
He did walk with a stick and he also used to have a problem every now and then with his leg locking up in a spasim .
 
chris said:
He did walk with a stick and he also used to have a problem every now and then with his leg locking up in a spasim .
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but the stick could have quite easily just been a prop for the show for comedy value, also when did his leg spasm, ive never seen that in his episodes at all
 
There is a lot of mystery behind Foggy. Maybe he used the stick because he couldn't go to war.
 
Compo said:
There is a lot of mystery behind Foggy. Maybe he used the stick because he couldn't go to war.
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Is it possible that Brian Wilde actually needed a stick and so they just gave his character a stick? They never explained the stick; he just always had it.
 
Watching the first episodes with Brian, back when the actors did their own stunts for the most part, he seemed fine without it. I think the stick was meant to represent him as thinking of himself as a more refined person (even if it was only in his mind). The way gentlemen from the 1800s always seemed to carry a walking stick around as a decorative accessory as much as to ward off ruffians/thieves and what not.
 
A couple of days ago I watched the episode Cheering Up Ludovic, in which there is a reference to Foggy's Burma campaign. Compo and Clegg joke about Foggy retaking Burma. Clegg asks was that the first or second time, to which Compo says, either time it wasn't so clever because "thee had help". Foggy then replies that the biggest help they had was that Compo wasn't there. He says "and probably the biggest help we had out there was that you never left England". To which Compo replies, "I were guarding Gloria Quarnby".

Point is there are quite a few references to Foggy being overseas in Burma and I don't recall any saying that he wasn't there, but as a Corporal Signwriter he may well have been out there as support. I think his fantasy was that he was in the thick of the action, when the chances are he was well behind the lines and never saw any but heard lots of stories.

Interesting though that later we have the story of Compo at Dunkirk, but it's clear from the early series that there are numerous references to the fact that he never left England.
 
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