by Rob Scully, The Telegraph, March 1st 1996

PAUL EDDINGTON, who became Britain's most popular prime minister in his television role as Jim Hacker, was remembered with humour by friends at a memorial service yesterday.

Eddington, who achieved fame only in middle age with The Good Life and Yes, Minister, died in November aged 68 after a long battle against a rare form of skin cancer.

Penelope Keith, his screen wife in The Good Life, was among showbusiness friends who attended a service at Paul's Church in Covent Garden. She said: "His widow Patricia asked me to arrange a happy service. His funeral obviously was very sad so we decided that this was going to be very jolly.

"I remember the professionalism and the jollity and ready wit of a very fine actor."

Nigel Hawthorne, who played scheming Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister, said: "It is very sad that a man with so much talent and so much to give should have been ill for so long.

"He was always a victim of his own health but he never let on when we were making Yes, Prime Minister. He would sometimes disappear for 10 minutes during a recording and we knew he was in distress but he would always come back and nobody said anything.

"He was very un-starry"

"His wife was extraordinary and was his support, comfort and guide. She took him home from hospital so that he could die in his own bed. He was very un-starry. He liked success but he did not flash it around."

Derek Fowlds, who played the civil servant, Bernard, in the show said: "I loved him. He was a wonderfully dear friend and he would have loved this. The sun shone specially for him."

His widow, Patricia, explained how in his final days at home he was extremely weak and his breathing was so poor that his nurse asked if he wanted some oxygen.

With what little strength he had left he replied optimistically: "Did you say gin?"

His son, Toby, said: "You could not possibly meet a kinder man but he was deeply mistrustful of tears. So if you must shed tears shed them for the stage not for him because the stage is now a slightly darker, slightly colder place for his passing."

Mr Eddington was born in London and became a quaker. His acting career began in 1941 with ENSA but he was asked to leave when it was discovered that he was a pacifist and a conscientious objector.

He appeared in repertory theatre for years including Sheffield where he met his actress wife. Also on the bill was Patrick McGoohan who met his own wife, Joan Drummond, there.

Mr Eddington's final television appearance was an interview with Jeremy Isaacs

In a message from America, Mr McGoohan, star of The Prisoner television series, said: "Where you are now is where you will be giving your best performance. When we get there please tell us one of your jokes. Be seeing you at the big curtain up."

Mr Eddington's final television appearance was an interview with Jeremy Isaacs in the Face to Face series in which he spoke candidly of his illness.

Yesterday's congregation included Peter Sallis, Zoe Wanamaker, Ray Cooney, Frank Finlay, Miriam Karlin, Dorothy Tutin, Peter Barkworth and Angela Thorne.

Mr Eddington, who had four children, was made a CBE in 1987. He made his last West End appearance last year with Richard Briers as two mental patients in the tragic comedy Home when he already knew he was dying.

Mr Briers said: "He was incredibly brave to play the role."