Merryfield joined Only Fools and Horses in January 1985, as the former seafaring Albert Gladstone Trotter, known as Uncle Albert, who was Grandad Trotter's globetrotting long-lost younger brother, and who was known for Uncle Albert's catchphrase of "During the war..." The character took over the role of senior citizen member of the Trotter family from Lennard Pearce, who played Grandad, after Pearce died unexpectedly in December 1984. Coincidentally, nine months earlier, in March 1984, Merryfield appeared in two episodes of a Shroud for a Nightingale alongside Lennard Pearce. He did much work for various charities, notably the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He wrote his autobiography, During the War and Other Encounters, in 1996.