An actor from the age of elegance

I don’t think I have ever been so nervous before a telephone call. I had written to Ian Carmichael, via his agent, to ask if I could interview him for an article I was writing on the late Dennis Price, who had played Jeeves to Carmichael’s Bertie Wooster in the 1960s BBC series The World of Wooster.

Carmichael had written back to say that he’d ‘try to oblige’ if I telephoned him at his North Yorkshire home. ‘I don’t think I’ll be very much help,’ he added. ‘Dennis was a very private man.’ Hardly encouraging.

I was nervous because Carmichael, like Price, was a hero of mine. I had been brought up watching his films, and although too young to remember The World of Wooster, I had loved his portrayal of the detective Lord Peter Wimsey on television in the 1970s.

Suppose Carmichael — the epitome of cheerful affability on screen, turned out to be an old curmudgeon in real life?

I needn’t have worried.