Remember piling up the pennies at your local watering hole for good causes?

And you lot at the front need to watch out as the coins come flying through mid-air.

There was a time when a pile of pennies on the bar in your local was a great way to raise money for charity – so many good causes were helped by customers carefully placing their spare change on the pile as it got taller and taller until…

Pushing over a pile of pennies in a Lacons pub fundraising event in Great Yarmouth, December 1961. (Image: Archant Library)

A pile of pennies being pushed over at the Kings Head pub, Hadleigh, in January 1967. (Image: Archant Library)

And it would be an added bonus if a local personality or star of the stage and screen could pop along and do the honours.

These photographs feature two much-loved people who are no longer with us. Richard Briers and Bob Wellings.

Now I think, please correct me if I am wrong, the photograph of Richard was taken, judging by the poster, at the old Gallon Pot public House in Great Yarmouth and the date on the back says 1979.

Go on Richard – one more push. One of our great stars of screen and stage Richard Briers having a work out at what looks like the Gallon Pot in Yarmouth. (Image: Archant Library)

The pub, on the corner of Market Place and Church Plain, was built by William Burroughes back in 1772 and then taken over by Lacons. The brewery re-built it after it was destroyed during a bombing raid in the second world war and re-opened in 1960.

In more recent times it has been open and then closed. What next? Time will tell.

Richard Briers at the Theatre Royal, Norwich as he prepares for his Role as Dame Nanny Goodlife in the Babes in the Wood pantomime. 19 October 1978. (Image: Archant Library)

Star of screen and stage Richard Briers, one of our best-loved and best known actors, was starring in the pantomime Babes in the Wood at Norwich Theatre Royal in the late 70s.

He died back in 2013 aged 79.

Richard Briers in his dressing room at the Theatre Royal. (Image: Archant Library)

Our picture of Bob Wellings doing the honours in the much-loved Good Companions which stood on Earlham Green Lane in Norwich would have been taken in the 1960s.

This was a great public house and the landlord and landlady at the time were Arthur and Joan Killington.

Watch out. Anglia TV’s Bob Wellings is pushing the pennies at the popular Good Companions pub in Norwich during the 1960s. (Image: Archant Library)

It closed 30 years ago but the memories remain.

Who remembers Bob on our screens, or in person, a lovely man?

Bob would always go out of his way to help others – as the picture proves.

Sadly he died in March this year at Halesworth. He was 87.

He started his working life as a teacher before coming to Norwich to be part of the team on the popular About Anglia programme before joining Nationwide on the BBC.

Those pennies are touching the ceiling! Mine hosts at the Good Companions, Arthur and Joan Killington in the 1960s. (Image: Archant Library)

Bob was a great character and always got the best out of the people he interviewed. He also co-hosted That’s Life in the first year and worked for other TV companies.

His former wife was Penny Tennyson and they had three children – Emma, Mathew and Sophie.

Bob lived in Suffolk and loved East Anglia. “The person you saw on screen was very much who Bob was in real life,” said Penny following his death.

Pile of pennies pushed over at the Bromeswell Cherry Tree, December 1966. (Image: Archant Library)

He never did know much about modern music so he made the family laugh in 1979 when he was asked to co-host The British Rock & Pop Awards.

“Fortunately,” said Penny, the only song he knew – Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty – did win an award that year.”

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