Oh John West, you downbeat, wipe-clean, salt-bearded old duffer—don't you know there's a new kid in town?
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Hickok is almost cleaned out at the time and remarks, "The old duffer broke me on the last hand" — moments before Jack McCall puts him down like an old dog.
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"Just like Jeremy Corbyn does," heckled an old duffer in the crowd, revealingly eliding the Labour leader's appeal to the half-million Britons involved in the party with the 45m-strong electorate at large.
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Jeffrey knocks Phil unconscious. Dolores, relieved, kisses Jeff on the cheek, and when Louise snaps a photo, unscrupulous newspaperman Al Morgan prints it in the paper. Annie sees the photo and confronts Jeffrey with cheating. In the same paper, Jeffrey notices an article about The Old Duffer, whose real name is Sir Archibald Clyde.
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The platoon are practising their morris dance in the church hall. Mainwaring notices that Corporal Jones is not his usual self. A few minutes later, Jones and asks for a heart to heart with Mainwaring. He reveals that his paramour, the widowed Mrs Fox, has become involved with another man - Mr Gordon, the town clerk, who Sergeant Wilson describes as "a bald-headed old duffer", much to Mainwaring's annoyance.
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Jeffrey bumps into an old friend, Everett Thorndyke, and since Everett is currently in the company of his mistress, they agree to not talk about their visit there. Eventually Jeffrey gets home to see Annie and they share a very romantic evening together. Annie promises not to tell anyone about his visit, but sends a piece with him back, which he gives to The Old Duffer. Jeffrey also tells the man he has been AWOL.
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Hickok reluctantly took the empty seat and joined the game, which was a fatal mistake. A drunken McCall entered the saloon, and ordered a drink from the bar. He proceeded to move down the bar, and stopped a few steps behind Hickok, as if to look at the hand he had been dealt. Not noticing McCall, Hickok said to another player, “The old duffer – he broke me on the hand,”, which would be his final words.
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Ex serviceman Jeffrey Dolan is held incarcerated in a New Jersey jail, suspected of murder. He gets a visit from a night club singer, Dolores Starr, and recapitulates the events leading him to his current miserable situation. Not long ago Jeffrey was an Air Force clerk stationed in London. He shared a bomb shelter with a British man he calls "The Old Duffer", and tells the man about his wonderful wife Annie and her exquisite cakes, for which he longs.
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As the series progresses, the two become closer after Sarah undergoes a whirlwind courtship and marriage that results in pregnancy; the marriage fails but produces "the Diana of the Future," as the new Great-Aunt Diana blesses the newborn. Just before Baby Diana arrives, the great-aunt-to-be reveals that much of her hostility towards the world stems from the fact that she is infertile; this incapability is one of her very few regrets in life. Tom is a kindly but deluded old duffer who frequently lives in a fantasy world following his retirement as an accountant. A widower for at least a decade, his increasingly eccentric behaviour leads his alcoholic and adulterous daughter-in-law Marion and henpecked son Geoffrey to move him into Bayview where he finds himself living next door to Diana.
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Moreover, when Private Frazer is temporarily promoted to Captain in "If the Cap Fits...", he selects Walker as his Sergeant. Walker has friendly relationships with all the men in the platoon, jokingly referring to the Scottish Frazer as "Taffy", and occasionally calling Jones a "silly old duffer" when they have the odd disagreement. While often exasperating Mainwaring with his constant quips and irreverent attitude towards the war in general and the platoon in particular, on one occasion (in the episode "Sons of the Sea") Mainwaring praises Walker's "lively sense of cockney humour" and for keeping his cool under stress (to which a surprised Walker stammers that he was "only trying to keep people cheerful"). At times, Walker even expresses a sentimental sense of fondness for Mainwaring and others in the platoon, telling Frazer (in the episode "Absent Friends") that he was bothered by seeing Mainwaring upset after the platoon chose to stay in the pub playing darts instead of going on parade.
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