Giok, you're half-way there with Max Miller. He didn't know whether to block her passage or toss himself off. The story is that his line got him banned from BBC radio, but I gather it could all be just another urban myth.

It was Beecham, by the way, not Beacham. (As well as being a conductor he was part of the family that brought us Beecham's Powder.) I think he was addressing Beatrice Harrison at a rehearsal of the BBC symphony orchestra.

The radio shows, Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horn, both presented by Kenneth Horne, were double entendre from start to finish. A s a child at the time,I noticed that the audience always reacted in two stages - first politely, then in hysterics as the joke sank in.

A Kenneth Williams contribution comes to mind:

"Hello Rodney." "Hello Charles." "How's your bottom?" "Shut up!" "So's mine. Must be the weather."

Or two nuns in a bath. One says "Where's the soap?" The other says "Yes, doesn't it?"

It now falls on Humphrey Lyttleton to keep this torch of innuendo blazing. Like Kenneth Horne, his voice is tailor-made. His hosts a radio show that includes a radio version of the BBC TV game, Give Us A Clue. Humph frankly admits that as Give Us a Clue was based on charades, his radio version can never match the original. He sighs wistfully as he recalls his fondest memories. For instance: "Who will ever forget Una Stubbs sitting open-mouthed as Lionel Blair pulled off12 Angry Men in less than half a minute?"