Always made me smile. A thoroughly likeable chap. Some great performances over the years, as mentioned above. More recently, my grandson and I have enjoyed watching him play the lead in Old Jack's Boat on CBeebies. RIP Bernard.
It's a twitter thing. When you see a name trending of an ageing star, the panic is that it's because they've died. Consequently, there are usually a few posts of relief when it turns out to be their birthday, or some other event that's triggered it. My most recent panic of this nature was seeing Mel Brooks' name trending recently, but it turned out to be because of his 96th birthday. Today, sadly, will be an occasion where the name trending is due to his death, hence the reference in the OP.
It was only literally yesterday evening that I was playing right said Fred and hole in the ground for a young lad at work who had never heard those songs.
Remember when he beat the crap out of Basil behind the counter lol. Why then did he just walk away after getting custard pied in the face and groin, and had his bag filled with cream ?.
How did he get to use/play on the (unseen) table tennis table, if he was on his own lol. And why did Polly ask him if he was the Duke of Kent ?.