Robert Mawdesley (c. 1900 – 30 September 1953) was an English actor, best remembered as the first voice of Walter Gabriel in the long-running radio programme ''

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word Radio broadcasting, channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now pr ...

'', which has been running as a daily serial on BBC Radio since 1 January 1951. Mawdesley was educated at

Gresham's School Gresham's School is a private school (English fee-charging boarding and day school) in Holt, Norfolk, England, one of the top thirty International Baccalaureate schools in England. The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a f ...

Holt, Norfolk Holt is a market town and civil parish in the county of Norfolk, England. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town has a population of 3,550, rising and including the ward to 3,810 at the 201 ...

, where he was a keen actor in school plays. Although he had a part in

Basil Dean Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Playhouse, Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, a ...

's movie ''Loyalties'' (1933), almost all of his work was on stage until he joined ''

'' in 1951. Mawdesley's character in the programme, Walter Gabriel, was an Ambridge

smallholder A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...

who provided most of the comic relief with the catch-phrase "My old pal, my old beauty" and other comments.

Selected filmography

*'' Loyalties'' (1933)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mawdesley, Robert 1900s births 1953 deaths English male comedians English male radio actors People educated at Gresham's School 20th-century English male actors 20th-century English comedians