Round the Horne has been much appreciated, but no-one has mentioned the quirk for which I remember it best: the double-laugh effect. The audience would at first laugh uncertainly and politely, sensing that a punchline had just been delivered. Then, even before that token gesture had fully subsided, there would come the genuine gale-force reaction, telling us that the the multiple entendres had at last sunk in.

If you ever queued to get into these shows, and killed time by surveying the (predominantly octogenerian) company around you, you would marvel that the second reaction ever came at all. O les beaux jours, as Sam Becket used to say.

Thanks for posting the question, Rick. Wonderfully evocative thread. But three times through those diaries must have been a real labour of love.