How Humph lit up my life

10:26am Thursday 1st May 2008

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IN COMMON with many, I haven't a clue what I'll do without Humph.

I can't remember the last time the death of a familiar stranger - a fitting definition of a famous person - caused me such sorrow.

It's silly, of course, because Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician, journalist, cartoonist and much-loved host of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, lived to 86, which is ripe by anyone's counting. Silly, too, because life will go on, as it does until it doesn't, and surely there will be repeats.

BBC Radio 4 ran one last Sunday lunchtime in honour of Humph, who presented the radio panel show for 36 years. It was a corker dating from the days when Willie Rushton was still around.

The matter of what constitutes Englishness is often up for debate. Self-deprecation, weary cynicism, a robust and filthy mind, quiet charm - those are some of the better qualities, or so I would suggest. Humph had them all, plus so many more.

This refugee from the upper classes was cynical, yet warm beneath the scratched surface; a witty curmudgeon who delivered his wisecracks with the precision of a crown green bowler taking aim across the clipped grass.

Firstly, never forget, Humph was a musician, something the obituaries and tributes have recorded. His Bad Penny Blues, released in 1956, was the first jazz song to reach the pop charts - and, 12 years later, was said to have inspired The Beatles to write Lady Madonna.

Not many Eton old boys go on to make a living from the jazz trumpet. Too often they want to govern us, as illustrated by David Cameron and his privileged crew. But let's not allow thoughts of that particular old boy sully our memories of Humph.

You couldn't take the jazz out of Humphrey Lyttelton, but you could put him in a different context and watch him thrive. That is what happened when he was chosen to host I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Happiness in life can rarely be ordered, tending to surprise us, often for reasons that cannot be explained. But it could be preordained by a good episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. To sit with tear-washed cheeks listening to its absurdist delights has provided me with some of my happier moments.

If laughter is the best medicine, to dust off the cliché, Humph ran the funniest chemists in town.

Mostly, as fans will recognise, with a tea-down-the-nose snort, he was known for his outrageous rudeness when addressing his imaginary scorer, the "lovely Samantha".

His elaborate double entendres were impishly disgusting. No one else in the history of broadcasting managed to tell such very filthy jokes on mainstream radio. Yet Humph delivered his blue-chip smut with such cheeky-boy charm that he always got away with it.

Sadly, I don't think I would get away with reproducing many of them here. Hopefully, the following one will slip by the censors...

"Samantha's just started keeping bees and already has three dozen or so. She says she's got an expert handler coming round to give a demonstration. He'll carefully take out her 38 bees and soon have them flying round his head."

Imagine it read out loud by a cherished old dandy, and you will see the joke.

Much is made at this time of year of the Sunday Times and its tedious Rich List. So I was pleased to see that a less moneyed Sunday newspaper has launched a rival Happiness List, celebrating Britons who have enhanced the lives of others. Humphrey Lyttelton would be near the top of any such list for me. My only regret is that a colleague got the review tickets when I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue came to the Grand Opera House. Now I'll never see how Humph and co orchestrated silliness to such an inspired degree.