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Hugh Latimer |
Actor who was equally at home in the workshop
Hugh Latimer, star of the cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, could have been an engineer or designer.
Although he worked for 50 years on stage, in the West End, on TV and in film, he had a talent as an engineer and, if he had not been seduced by curtain calls, would have been equally at home in a workshop or at a drawing board in a design studio. But he chose the stage, and his acting credits included West End hits in which he would play a series of well-spoken and clean-cut young men.
He played a police officer in A Lady Mislaid, a well-heeled young man in Jane Steps Out and was also occasionally in radio plays. His TV credits included Dixon of Dock Green and the Adventures of Robin Hood.
Hugh, who died aged 93, the father of the New Journal’s cookery columnist Clare Latimer, was born in Haslemere, Surrey.
At school, he was brilliant at woodwork and metalwork. In retirement, he would spend many happy hours making model boats, including a remote-controlled model duck called Francis Drake which would chase real ducks across the ponds on Hampstead Heath.
When he went to Cambridge University, he discovered a love and talent for acting. He appeared in Footlights, and then headed for the Central School of Speech and Drama before landing a role in Brixton Theatre’s White Cargo in 1936.
He was called up in 1940 and saw action in India and the Middle East, but did not allow his talents on stage to lie fallow, helping to stage a production of While The Sun Shines in Calcutta.
During the war, his wife, the actress Sheila Gairns, bought a home in South End Road, Hampstead.
He returned from serving in the forces in 1946 – and his friends recall an anecdote he told them about arriving at Euston station at 4am.
A taxi driver told him “I’m not f***ing going there” when he gave the address. Latimer replied: “I have come 6,000 miles in a ship, which broke down. Then I came 400 miles in a train from Glasgow, which broke down. I am now four miles from a wife I have not seen for four years, and you’re not f***ing going there?”
A policeman stepped in, and suggested the driver take the fare. When they reached Hampstead the driver carried Latimer’s luggage to the front door, and said to his wife: “Madam, may I introduce you to your husband?”
In his spare time, Latimer made toys for Clare and her sister, including steam engines and a spider that sang ‘Humpty Dumpty’. He also made jewellery for female friends, which many wore at his funeral.
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