Some of you reading this will be old friends from my radio, television and stage shows. Some of you quite possibly have never heard or seen me but, to all of you, I say welcome to our website.
I was born on 8th August, 1928, in the small town of Brampton in Cumbria, where my father had a soft drinks and beer bottling business, inherited from his father and where, a few miles away, my mother’s father was vicar of a small parish. How’s that for a start in life? One grandfather a brewer and the other a vicar!
I was educated at the local council elementary school and then won a scholarship to the local grammar school where, possibly my greatest achievement, was to play cricket and soccer for the school first teams.