One thing I really respect about Jon Pertwee was how much he hated bullies, and how protective he was of his friends. In an interview in one of the DW magazines, he speaks of hating bullies ever since childhood because of the messed up British school system which allowed and even encouraged that kind of behaviour, and he talks about it a lot throughout the interview.
“I felt quite protective of Roger. There is a scene in The Sea Devils where they needed to shoot Roger floating in water to get an establishing shot. Now, Roger was terrified of water. It took a lot of persuading by me to get him to do it and a lot of Katy talking gently to calm him down enough to actually get in the water. Just as we had done that, the idiot assistant director shouted out: ‘Come on Roger, for God’s sake, you’ve wasted enough time already!’
“I was furious. I said to the AD, ‘Can’t you see how much it takes for him to do this? You shouting like that just ruins his confidence. Why don’t you stop being such an arse and jump in the sea yourself?!’ I never could stand anyone bullying people.” — Jon Pertwee, DWM 457.
And this, from an article about the filming of Terror of the Autons:
“The short-sighted Manning sprained her right ankle when she ran into a rock on the rough terrain, and started to worry that she might have to be replaced. When production assistant Nicholas Howard John—the brother of Caroline John—joked about this, he received a stern reprimand from Pertwee about upsetting his new co-star.” — DWM 311.
And Jon used to hold Katy’s hand whenever they were running because of her short-sightedness, and he would wrap his cape around her to keep her warm when they were filming on location.
