The 6ft 2in Scottish actor John Stahl, who has died aged 68 of a brain tumour, was best known for two television roles. He went from playing a gentle giant toiling on a farm in his home country’s scenic highlands in Take the High Road to portraying the head of a noble house, complete with long white hair and thick grey beard, in Game of Thrones, the fantasy drama that became a worldwide hit.
In the Scottish soap – eventually retitled High Road – he was the shy, good-natured crofter Tom Kerr, known to all in the fictional village of Glendarroch, on the banks of Loch Lomond, as Inverdarroch, after his farm. The character was unlucky in love, never plucking up the courage to propose to Lily Taylor (played by Thelma Rogers), a widow, then experiencing a failed marriage to Claire Millar (Julie Miller), the district nurse.
