Episode 29 – Glynn Edwards Tribute

The Minder Podcast

Welcome to episode 29 of The Minder Podcast in association with minder.org.

In this episode we bring you a tribute to a man without whom Minder would have looked very different indeed. What would Minder have been without Dave the barman? A very underrated part of the main trio which made Minder famous: Arthur, Terry and Dave, Glynn Edwards was by all accounts very similar to his character. He liked a pint for one thing.

So we will cover the life and times of Glynn Edwards, drawing together from as many sources as were available. If you had tried to find out more about Glynn you may have thought there was not too much out there. I know I did.

Despite his many TV, film and theatre performances, the man himself was a bit of a mystery. Have you heard all this before? I hope not. But even if you are a treasure trove of knowledge when it comes to Glynn Edwards, this is the first audio tribute that covers it all. I think anyway.

In the process of searching through everything I could about his life and career I realised there were many gaps and so – over the months (yes I have been working on this off and on since November last year!) I tried to complete the picture. Along the way I was lucky enough to enter into correspondence with Christine Pilgrim, Glynn’s second wife, after Yootha Joyce.

We cover Glynn’s youth where he had a variety of placements and forms of work as well as his journey into becoming a full-time actor who only ever once had to sign on and that was in the early days. Within this show is everything from Marillion and Rich Tea biscuits to Shaft In Africa. Glynn was a true one off.

Glynn appeared in 95 episodes of Minder, second only to George Cole who of course appeared in every one. The sheer variety and impressiveness of his other work really shines through – who can forget Zulu for instance?

He was no one trick pony, appearing in The Paper Lads, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Get Carter, Dixon of Dock Green, Burke and Hare, Robbery and Steptoe and Son. He had hundreds of acting credits in TV, film amd theatre to his name and a rather exciting personal life too.

He liked nothing more than sailing on a boat and even once invented a board game. Unusual man indeed in all the right ways. As Christine Pilgrim told me: “Glynn was a good man.”

Although his acting credits were many and varied, Minder really did change his life. Gradually all other work took a back seat and all Glynn had to do was drive (or sometimes sail!) to the studio and take his rightful place behind the bar. As he would later say, “Minder is timeless.”

So grab yourself a Vera and Philharmonic and sit back to reminisce over the wonderful Glynn Edwards.