Brian Hibbard

Brian Hibbard (26 November 1946 – 17 June 2012) was a Welsh actor and singer, best remembered as the lead vocalist in the original Flying Pickets.

Hibbard was born into a working class family in Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, and had a socialist upbringing. He was educated at Ebbw Vale Grammar School. After various jobs including teacher, steel worker, barman and chimney sweep, he formed the Flying Pickets with a group of other actors who had practised a cappella singing while travelling by coach to their appearances. He performed two concerts at Ebbw Vale Leisure Centre when touring with the Flying Pickets, and formed a picket line on Top of the Pops at the height of the miners' strike (1984-85).

Following the group's success in the early 1980s, Hibbard went on to pursue a career as a television actor, appearing in Coronation Street as garage mechanic Doug Murray, in Emmerdale as Bobby-John Downes, and as Johnny Mac in the Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm as well as the youth drama Pam Fi, Duw?. He was in the 1997 film Twin Town as the self-styled "Karaoke King" Dai Rees. He has also appeared in the drama serial Making Out; in the Doctor Who story Delta and the Bannermen; in comedy in The Armando Ianucci Shows and Satellite City; and in the film Rancid Aluminium. Hibbard appeared in EastEnders from 4 to 8 July 2011 playing Henry Mason, a man who ran a children's home where Billy Mitchell and Julie Perkins were in care.

In 2000, Hibbard was diagnosed with prostate cancer; he died of the disease on 17 June 2012. He is survived by his wife, Caroline and their children: Lilly, Hafwen and Cai.