The Eulogy for Philip Gilbert

Written and delivered by Nick Young at the funeral service 21st January 2004.

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It was springtime in British Columbia, and Phil was an innocent young man of eight or ten years old skipping through the forest. The sun was shining, the air was crisp and fresh - if there was paradise on earth, this came pretty close.

Then suddenly, Phil heard the sound of a creature in distress. He looked around him and saw a bee caught in a spider's web, the spider watching in eager anticipation as his breakfast hopelessly struggled to free himself from the trap into which he had flown.

"This cannot be," thought Phil to himself, "on such a beautiful day as this I cannot allow one of God's creatures to suffer in such a cruel way".

Phil carefully detached the web from the tree, and gently unravelled the web from the struggling bee. Feeling pleased with himself and literally full of the joys of spring, Phil was delighted when the bee was finally freed to fly away.

The bee then promptly stung Phil and flew off to die, as bees invariably do when they have left half their rear end in their victim's body.

Thus as a result of his efforts, Phil got stung, the bee died, and the spider went without his breakfast!

To the cynic, indeed to most, the moral of this story is not to bother to help anyone because you will get stung for your trouble.

But Phil was no cynic. He would be stung on many more occasions in his life but he never lost that willingness to help the underdog, no matter what the consequences.

And not always the underdog either. For Phil's generosity knew no bounds. Both as an actor and as a human being he was quite simply one of the kindest people I have ever known.

The Phil most of us know was called Philip Gilbert. But this was in fact his stage name. Trying to be an actor in Canada in the 1950s was not easy. British Columbia today is a magnet for Hollywood producers but in those days there were only two places to go - south to Hollywood (as Lorne Greene, Raymond Massie and William Shatner had done) or east to England. It's hard to believe now but England in the early 1950s had a thriving film industry. But in order to sell their wares to the American market it was necessary to have an American in the cast somewhere. Although not quite American, Phil's Canadian accent was close enough and he was snapped up by J. Arthur Rank, a famous British producer of the day and the owner of Pinewood Studios.

Rank's stars were all handsome or beautiful, and were trained in what was known as the Rank charm school to behave and dress impeccably (how unlike today's so-called stars). But Phil needed no training. His natural charm and good looks fitted the mould perfectly and he spent much of his time escorting beautiful young starlets to fetes and premieres whilst the studio looked for a suitable cinematic vehicle to further Phil's career.

Phil himself admitted that they were at a loss to know what to do with him, and he spent a frustrating few years playing small roles in various films, the best known of which was that most unusual of British movies - the western. A famous film in its day, THE SINGER NOT THE| SONG, starring Dirk Bogarde and John Mills, was indeed a cowboy film - set in Mexico in the nineteenth century. Sadly it is not often shown now, and Phil is more likely to be seen in films like DENTIST IN THE CHAIR in which he played a terrified patient.

Whilst Phil was waiting for his break the studio was paying him the princely sum of £100 per week, closer to £1700 a week in today's money. Phil was sensible enough to invest his earnings for the rainy day which inevitably comes to all actors. And so although Phil's film career did not fully go according to plan, he was able to ensure some sort of security for the years to come. Although by then firmly settled in England, Phil never forgot Canada and returned there whenever he could - increasingly so as his parents got older.

I first met Phil at Thames Television studios in 1972 he was younger then than I am now and he seemed so old! But that is the perception of the young; that anyone more than five years older than they is positively ancient.

But as I got to know Phil better I began to see a man who was, at the same time, both wise and young-at-heart. He had a beautiful, rich, speaking voice with just the right amount of transatlantic twang to give a warm and credible personality to the computer, TIM.

The word AVUNCULAR might have been invented for Phil, for he was indeed the uncle we all wished we had. He was supportive, funny, encouraging and kind to everyone.

Initially Phil's performance was purely vocal. His character was a biological computer capable of independent thought. The enormous construction that Phil's voice personified hung from the ceiling of the principal set, the Tomorrow People's lab. It was a mishmash of dangling tubes and four semi-spheroids known affectionately to us all as Tim's balls. You have to bear in mind that this was in the days when computers were housed only in the depths of large corporations or governmental institutions - so Tim was remarkably compact for his day.

I used to watch Phil as he sat off set on an orange box (for the second series his agent negotiated more money AND a chair), he would deliver his lines with gravitas and just the right amount of pomposity and smugness but although he could not be seen, he clutched his script in one hand and gestured with great gusto with his other.

Here was a frustrated performer if ever there was one, and I know it gave Phil enormous pleasure when he was allowed to appear physically in later episodes in the many manifestations of TIM such as TIMUS or TIKNO.

Despite our mercilessly poking fun at Phil's interpretation of the ambassador from the Galactic Trig, he managed to maintain a certain dignity which gave the character credibility. Phil, I know, enjoyed being the butt of our jokes but being the true professional that he was, he was able keep a perfectly straight face whilst the rest of us were shaking uncontrollably with laughter, and had tears running down our faces.

Phil was as astonished, and as delighted, as the rest of us that the series eventually went to nearly 70 episodes and was sold to over 55 countries. It became for him, and for us, a way of life (and clearly it became a way of life for many others, as I have seen today by the dozens of e-mails which Jackie showed me earlier from devoted fans who have written from all over the world to express their sorrow at the news of Phil's death).

Over the years, Phil became a personal friend and I and my girlfriend at the time, Carol, with whom he shared the same birthday, would often go and visit him at the splendid old house he shared with Freddie Eldrett in Great Missenden.

Few of us are lucky enough to have a life-long friend. Phil and Freddie had such a friendship. Phil and Freddie kept horses like the rest of us might keep dogs. They were pets living in the garden (albeit a very large garden), not beasts of burden to be ridden just once a week. Their love of horses was shared by my girlfriend Carol and we all spent many an enjoyable Sunday in the fields behind the house with Duchess and her foal, ending the day with tea prepared by Phil around an open fire.

And as Carol become increasingly more crippled with arthritis, Phil was always calling me with news of new treatments and asking after her welfare at every opportunity.

Carol was very fond of Phil, and so was my mother. It is quite a skill to appeal to people of all generations, again Phil managed it without a second thought.

And then The Tomorrow People came to an end (or at least a lengthy rest) and the time came to move away from Great Missenden. I know that Phil was extremely sorry to leave but circumstances made it difficult to stay on. And so the next phase of Phil's life began in Farnborough.

Here he and Freddie were able to give expression to their abilities as directors by putting on a number of successful shows in the enchanting Prince Regent Theatre. Although sadly not the financial success that it should have been, many were given their first introduction to the theatre thanks to some of the children's productions that were put on here, and the theatre's reputation for excellence grew far and wide.

Unfortunately work as a professional actor was a little thin on the ground during this period as well, although Phil gave a memorable performance as incredulous newsreader in Superman III!

And so no one was more pleased than Phil when it was announced that NEW Tomorrow People stories were to recorded and that all the originals were to be re-released on DVD. It seemed that re-runs on the sci-fi channel had revived interest in the series - somehow Phil always knew this would happen.

And so the lab was moved seamlessly from Wood Lane to Brixton and, as the new millennium dawned, one historic Sunday Tim came to life again as he uttered his first words in over twenty years.

It was as if we had never been away. No longer a young man, Phil's voice was as strong and rich as ever. His hand was gesturing just as it did in the 1970s, the tone the power, the magic was all still there, despite the fact, as we were to discover, he was seriously ill, and the careful plans which he had laid as a young man to secure his financial future had failed to live up to expectations .

And although many of us were not aware of it, Freddie was seriously ill as well.

I last saw Freddie in August at the funeral of Rona Knight, principal of Corona Stage School which both Freddie and I attended. Soon afterwards I heard the sad news of Freddie's death. I had not seen Phil since our last recording so I wrote to him to express my feelings. I was pleased I did, for I was not to see Phil alive again but the letter gave me an opportunity, not only to offer whatever help I could, but to tell Phil that I had never forgotten the kindness he had shown to me and mine over the years.

An eminent Victorian once commented, at the birth of photography, that man had now achieved immortality; and in a way he was right. How much more so now with sound and movement and colour.

So although the Phil we have all come here to say farewell to today is no longer with us in person, he lives on in the recordings we have of him. He has merely gone to the Galactic Trig for a while. And in our minds, the wicked sense of humour, the smile the warmth, the love will always be with us - for as long as we live.

Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, once said that the best a man could do was to leave the world a better place than he had found it. Young Phil was a Scout as a boy in Canada. I don't know whether he was aware of the founder's philosophy but Phil undoubtedly left the world a better place than he had found it, and lived his life as a Christian in the true sense of the word.

In closing I want to tell you about my own mother who now lives in a nursing home. She is suffering from a form of Alzheimer's which allows for moments of lucidity from time to time. When I last visited her, I told her of Phil's death not expecting either response or reaction. After all she had not seen Phil since my wedding over fifteen years ago . I was amazed that from somewhere deep in the reaches of her mind there was more than a flicker of recognition. "Phil" she mused - "he was such a nice man". Yes Mum, he was.