<P> In 1981, ATV made six episodes under the title Till Death...The series had Alf and Else sharing a bungalow with Min (Patricia Hayes) following the death of her husband Bert (Alfie Bass) in Eastbourne . Although Rita remained in the cast, Anthony Booth declined to return . Rita's son Michael was now a teenager and a punk rocker (even though he was born in 1972 and therefore should only have been about 9 or 10). The series was not a success and when Central Television were awarded the contract for the Midlands region from 1982, it was decided that Till Death...was not to return . </P> <P> Alf Garnett returned to the BBC in 1985 for In Sickness and in Health . This took Alf and Else (who was now in a wheelchair) onward into old age, and some of Alf's more extreme opinions were found to have mellowed . Una Stubbs made some guest appearances but Anthony Booth apparently wasn't interested in reprising his role . Eventually Mike and Rita divorced and Rita began dating a doctor . After the first series Dandy Nichols died, and so subsequent episodes showed Alf having to deal with life as a widower . </P> <P> The loss of Else (and later, Rita) as regulars in the cast meant that new characters had to be brought in as antagonists for Alf . These notably included his home help, Winston (played by Eamonn Walker), who was both black and gay, and Alf's prim upstairs neighbour, Mrs Hollingberry (played by Carmel McSharry), who eventually agreed to marry Alf . </P> <P> In 1988, Speight was warned about the use of racist language--and after discussion it was decided that Alf's racist language was to be discontinued and the character of Winston was to be written out . With such improvements helping update the basic concept, In Sickness and Health ran until 1992 . </P>

Bigoted hero of til death us do part