Bernard Woolley

Sir Bernard Woolley, GCB, MA (Oxon) is one of the three main fictional characters of the 1980s British sitcom Yes Minister and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. He was portrayed originally by Derek Fowlds, with Chris Larkin taking on the part for the 2013 revival. Fictional biography He is the Principal Private Secretary to the Minister for Administrative Affairs (a fictional office), and later Prime Minister, Jim Hacker. However, his loyalties are split between his Minister and his Civil Service boss, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Whilst he is theoretically accountable to Hacker personally, it is Sir Humphrey who writes his performance reviews and apparently wields influence over Bernard's future in the Civil Service, leading to difficult situations for the young civil servant. When Hacker once asked his Private Secretary where his loyalty would lie when the chips were down, Woolley replied, "Minister, it's my job to see the chips stay up." His background is not revealed to any great extent, though it is revealed he, like Sir Humphrey, is an Oxford graduate. In Episode 4 of Series 3 of Yes, Minister, Woolley is shown wearing a Magdalen College, Oxford tie, suggesting that he attended Magdalen College, Oxford (the novelisation, in an apparent mistake, refers to Bernard at one point as a graduate of Cambridge, but later follows the series in confirming that he attended Oxford. There is, however, no problem in suggesting that he attended both). In addition, several areas of specialist knowledge surface from time to time: one example arises in "The Greasy Pole" where, while discussing the possible political dangers of building a chemical facility in Liverpool (to manufacture the fictional compound "metadioxin"), Woolley is quick to remind Sir Humphrey that Greek, unlike Latin, has no ablative case (Bernard may, like Sir Humphrey, have read Literae Humaniores, but equally a basic knowledge of Greek and Latin may merely suggest a standard classical schooling). As with the other principal characters in the series, both actor and character have the same date of birth. This means that Bernard is in his mid- to late-forties during the series. Bernard is also married: in the Yes, Prime Minister episode "The Key", he declares that he does not give the key to his house to his mother-in-law. However, his wife never appeared in the series.