David Jason

Missing out on 'Monty Python' was a real blow at the time. I sometimes wonder how things would have been different if I had been invited to join 'Monty Python,' but as the saying goes, one door closes, another opens.

The Christmas of 1965 was a Yuletide with a difference at my parents' tiny terrace house in North London: it was the first time my family had been able to see me on television.

All my work's been disguise, really: hiding behind the character.

It's very nice to meet people who just get on, work hard, and don't have things handed to them.

I was 25 when I'd told my parents that I was giving up steady work as an electrician to become an actor. They couldn't have been less enthusiastic if I'd proposed starting a commercial newt-breeding operation in the bathroom.

For me, the making of a documentary to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain was an intensely personal journey. I was born in February 1940, so I was just six months old as the battle raged overhead.