Robert Mawdesley was an English actor, best remembered as the voice of the first Walter Gabriel in the long-running radio programme The Archers

The Archers

The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...

, which has been running as a daily serial on BBC Radio since 1 January, 1951.

Mawdesley was educated at Gresham's School

Gresham's School

Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...

, Holt, Norfolk

Holt, Norfolk

Holt is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town is on the route of the A148 King's Lynn to Cromer road. The nearest railway station is in the town of Sheringham where access to the...

, where he was a keen actor in school plays. Although he had a part in Basil Dean

Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....

's movie Loyalties (1933), almost all of his work was on stage until he joined The Archers

The Archers

The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...

in 1951. Mawdesley's character in the programme, Walter Gabriel, was an Ambridge smallholder who provided most of the comic relief with the catch-phrase "My old pal, my old beauty" and other comments.

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