Fot an acting career that has lasted for almost sixty years, we have two perhaps unexpected reasons to be grateful to Barry Morse; namely, John Steed and James Kirk. ���In the early 1950s Mr & Mrs Barry Morse ran a theatre in Canada, while Barry was also an unofficial agent for the many British actors who arrived on his doorstep hoping to get work in the infant Canadian tv industry. ���One of those actors was Patrick Macnee, who during his time in Canada met Syd- ney Newman and Leonard White, the pro- ducers who ten years later cast him in The Avengers. Another promising young ac- tor, a Canadian who first worked profes- sionally for the Morse's theatre company, is still referred to by Barry and his wife as 'young Billy Shatner'. Early Start ���However, we are already get- ting ahead of ourselves. Barry Morse's tv career actually dates back to the very earliest days of television itself. "I first worked in television, when I was very much a youngster in our trade and in every other sense, in 1936 up at the old Ally Pally for the BBC." says Barry. "The audience would have amounted to no more than the crowd for a third division football match, no more than two or three thou- sand probably. I don't know if they even measured what the size of the audience was."

���Barry was able to work regularaly in the infant medium because his more experienced colleagues weren't ex- actly hammering on the BBC's door. "Ac- tors who were established would not be seen dead in television, partly because it was so badly paid, but also because it was not believed to be a viable medium. ���"An old actor who I was working with in a play in London in those days, heard that I was doing something else in the daytime. He asked, 'What is this you're doing dur- ing the day, Morse?' 'It's something for the BBC, sir'--you always called old actors sir in those days--'What, on the wireless?' 'No, not exactly, sir. Although it is for the BBC, it's like the wirelies, but with pic- tures.' 'Oh yes I've heard of that,' he said with great scorn, 'they call it the television don't they? You are a bloody fool wasting your time with that rubbish. Don't you know it's just a fad, like the yo-yo. They'll have forgotten all about it by Christmas.'