Ruth Madoc   16 April 1943  _  9 December 2022 (aged 79)  RIP

From 1980 – 1988 Hi Di Hi was one of the most successful sit-coms on British Television.  Irs setting was a Holiday Camp in the 1950s  which was then the most popular vacation destination for blue-collar families still recovering from the hardships of WW2.  (food rationing didn’t stop until 1953)

The show was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and the title was the greeting the campers heard each morning.  The series revolved around the lives of the camp’s entertainers, most of whom were struggling actors and has-beens. It was an immediate success in the rating and won  a BAFTA for Best Television Comedy Series in 1984 and made stars of many of the cast including Ruth Madoc

She played Gladys Pugh the  Chief/Sports Organiser/Radio Maplin Announcer – Gladys disliked all the other female staff known as  Yellowcoats, in particular Sylvia Garnsey, whom she saw as competition in her fight for the posh out-of-place manager Jeffrey and his affections.  Gladys never could get laid but in a script overladen with innuendos (a very British trait) the lack of her love life was cause for a great deal of merriment.  It also made Gladys aka Ruth something of gay icon and the reason why the Show had such an enormous queer following .

Madoc had an extensive successful career …: she was in the Academy Award-winning film version of Fiddler on The Roof in 1971, appeared in both the stage  and film versions of Under Milk Wood; starred in some Agatha Christie thrillers, and even in a UK version of  Annie the musical.  However it is for Madoc’s recurring role centered on her unrequited love for the camp entertainment manager  Jeffrey Fairbrother (Simon Cadell) and her announcements on the camp tannoy On Hi Di Hi that made her a star in all our (gay) hearts.

On the eve of her latest stage performance in Aladdin pantomime at the Princess Theatre, Torquay,  Madoc died in the hospital after a fall.  She was 79.