Deryck Guyler

Deryck Guyler (1914-1999) was a British comedy actor, best known for roles as an officious short-tempered middle-aged man in sitcoms such as Please, Sir and Sykes. He was born in Cheshire and brought up in Liverpool, and originally planned a career in the church. By the time the Second World War broke out, he had already decided to go into professional acting, and ENSA gave him the opportunity to reach a wider audience. After the war, he became a regular on the immensely popular radio series, It's That Man Again (ITMA). His success continued into the 1960s when he starred in the gently satirical radio programme about life in the British civil service The Men from the Ministry with Richard Murdoch.

His first television success came as one of Michael Bentine's sidekicks in the inventive and surreal BBC show It's a Square World (1960). Latterly, he appeared in numerous television light entertainment shows, in which he performed a novelty act playing the washboard. In 1983, he retired to Brisbane, Australia, where he lived until his death.