Arthur Askey was on top of the pips in the wartime film Back-Room Boy

‘Askey plays a meteorologist whose responsibility of playing the pips every hour interferes with his personal life.’ Photograph: Getty/iStockphoto

The film that Yvonne Whalley remembers, starring Arthur Askey as the BBC’s operator of the pips (Letters, 9 February), is 1942’s Back-Room Boy.

Askey plays a meteorologist whose responsibility of playing the pips every hour interferes with his personal life to the extent that his fiancee breaks off their engagement. Upset by this, he plays a short tune instead of the pips at midnight, causing him to be reassigned to a remote Hebridean weather station.