Peter Llewellyn-Jones is gone – and with him, a piece of countless childhoods. To many, he was the quirky Mr Grimley from The Riddlers. To the Deaf community, he was something far greater: a tireless fighter for British Sign Language, quietly reshaping classrooms, stages and screens. Students adored him. Colleagues revered him. The question now is who pic…

Peter Llewellyn-Jones’s life threaded together television magic and quiet revolution. As Mr Grimley, he slipped into living rooms as a lovable eccentric neighbour; as a BSL interpreter and academic, he fought for a world where Deaf children were not an afterthought, but the audience in the front row. From Supersign on Insight to opera stages and lecture halls, he treated signing not as a service, but as an art form and a right.

In universities, he built courses that professionalised BSL-English interpreting and inspired students who left his classes “feeling good” and seen. Online tributes now read like a chorus: enthralling, funny, insightful, unforgettable. His death at 76 leaves a silence his own language never tolerated – the silence of exclusion. Yet his legacy lives in every interpreter he trained, every Deaf child who finally saw themselves on screen, and every hand that still rises to sig.