Howard Lew Lewis (21 August 1941 – 20 January 2018) was a British comedian and actor, best known for his roles in comedy series including Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, Brush Strokes and Chelmsford 123. Biography Lewis was born in London, England. His parents were both born in southern Wales (Tenby and Bridgend). As a young man, Lewis flat-shared with Ken Morley (Reg Holdsworth of Coronation Street) and Andy Carr, actor and screenwriter. His first job was with the Royal Air Force, where he was a computer operator. He worked for several years in computing and telecommunications, but when promoted to manager-level he decided instead to pursue acting as a career after being asked to fire a colleague whom he believed to be a good worker. He was married twice. His first marriage lasted just over a year. His second marriage was to Anna Goodall. They married in 1990 with Ken Morley as best man. Howard loved reading and had over 35,000 books in his collection, many were first editions. His other hobby was trains and trainsets and tea was often passed on the back of a train that circumnavigated his living room. His favourite magazine was Private Eye and the Beano and Dandy comics which he collected for many decades. Television He appeared as one of the Merry Men in the 1989 BBC children's television comedy series Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Lewis featured as one of Robin Hood's followers in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, playing a character named Hal. He appeared in two other prominent historical comedy series - as Blag in the Channel 4 sitcom Chelmsford 123 (1988) set during the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 123, and as assorted medieval peasants, (including Piers and Mr Applebottom) in The Black Adder (1983), set in 1485. His longest recurring role was as dim barman Elmo Putney in the comedy series Brush Strokes (1991), and he had minor parts in two Ronnie Barker sitcoms - The Magnificent Evans (1984) and Open All Hours (1985) - and the ITV comedy-drama Minder (1984). He had a succession of minor roles in such notable series as: Dennis Potter's BBC television drama serial Pennies from Heaven (1978) Reilly, Ace of Spies about real-life Bond-model, spy Sidney Reilly (1983) An early episode of ITV's police procedural The Bill (1985) The Charmer (1987) "Now You See Them", a