From when I was eight years old, my dad worked at ATV Borehamwood. During this time I was privileged to be invited to watch the shows recorded there. My dad got the tickets, and my mum and I happily sat in the audience watching the very best of the best! TV was all about quality in those days.

One of the funniest programmes was, of course, Two of a Kind: The Morecambe & Wise Show!

I recall on one occasion sitting in the audience seating area at ATV, in what I think was Studio D. In those days, it was raised up but with gaps in the side for you to see through. My mum and I took our seats, smiling with expectation of what was to come, and we were not disappointed! For, from the minute Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise appeared, we were in stitches. Laughing uncontrollably till the tears rolled down our cheeks! My dad was watching from behind the scenes.

After the first part of the show was recorded, I looked down from my lofty perch in the audience watching as Eric walked slowly from the set and carefully picked up and lit up a big pipe! He paced up and down, puffing away, and looking so worried and anxious, and I thought, ‘Why are you so concerned? You were absolutely brilliant! You have nothing at all to worry about whatsoever! You are the funniest man on the planet!’ All I wanted to do was clamber down from my seat, and fling my arms round him and give him a great big hug – and tell him that!

My dad adored Morecambe & Wise, especially Eric, because they were on the same wavelength! He would repeat jokes or sketches that Eric had thought up, and of course in those days Sid and Dick were also working on the scripts. But Eric was the superstar, although he never, ever acted that way. Anyone who met him or watched him work could see that he was a natural comic genius who could make you fall about just by standing still! 

The BBC liked to think that they invented Morecambe & Wise, but it was Lew Grade of ATV who set the ball rolling. I worked at ATV for seven years when I was older, and closely with Lord Grade. He was an exceptional entrepreneur who could spot talent a million miles away, and made stars of people like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. I think perhaps in those days gone by the BBC were still into a strictly ‘BBC accent’ which, of course, Eric did not possess – not at all! But ATV and Lew could see the diamond behind the Northern accent, and he polished it till it sparkled!

I remember vividly the day that the BBC took Morecambe & Wise from ATV, because my dad returned from work deeply moved and very upset. My mum and I were so concerned – what could have possibly occurred to cause him such distress? Had someone died? Was someone ill? With a look of such sadness he replied: ‘We’ve lost Morecambe & Wise – to the BBC.’

My former husband and I were decorating our hallway in Bushey Heath when the news came through on the radio that Eric Morecambe had died. It felt to me as though I had lost a member of my own family.