when did howard join last of the summer wine
List of Last of the Summer Wine characters (1985, 1986â€“2010) Howard is the shy, beady-eyed, constantly conniving, simpering, henpecked husband of Pearl. Doubtless owing to his wife's domineering nature, Howard often tries to escape from her. Most episodes involve Howard dating peroxide blonde, Marina, behind his wife's back. In most episodes, Marina would simper, "Oh Howard.", followed by Howard's "Oh Marina."- sometimes the order was reversed, He is a creative but unconvincing liar. He and Pearl live next door to Clegg, and, much to the annoyance of the latter, Howard is always pestering him for aid in his various schemes to escape Pearl and be with Marina. Over the years he has come up with countless disguises, cover stories and hideaways to allow him to see Marina, all of which have ultimately been doomed or exposed by Pearl. In their earlier appearances, they were frequently shown in disguise with Howard saying, "I think we've really cracked it this time". However, he tends to ignore Marina when he's out with her, partly out of fear of his wife Pearl, and partly because he gets so deeply caught up in fabricating charades to cover up his affair. As a result, their relationship does not appear to have gone beyond hand-holding and gazing into each other's eyes (much to the annoyance of Marina), and the occasional kiss in a field, haystack, or mobile hut somewhere, and it is hinted that if Howard ever did get the chance, he would be too cowardly to go through with it anyway. It has also been suggested that Howard loves Pearl underneath it all. In later series Howard was shown to be out of the house more regularly (despite Pearl knowing about his attempted affair with Marina) and eventually became more involved in the schemes of the main trio. Howard first appeared in the Bournemouth summer season show of the series, and was popular enough and felt to have enough potential that he was soon made a regular character. At first, he, Pearl and Marina were used semi-regularly, but as time passed and their popularity grew, they appeared in every episode (particularly after Wally Batty died). Howard and Pearl's surname was given as Sibshaw in Roy Clarke's novel 'The Moonbather' in 1987, but only mentioned once in the entire TV series, in one of the last episodes, when Glenda refers to Howard as Mr. Sibshaw.