KEITH NEWBERY Master-class in communication

The event was part of a local festival, and I confess to being surprised at the size of the audience because Sykes had not – until that evening – been a particular favourite of mine.

He had been a continuous presence in my life; a form of human wallpaper which was always there in the background, pleasant and unobtrusive without leaving much of an impression.

But he had written his autobiography, called (with typical self-effacement and impeccable logic) If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Else Will.

I began to read it out of duty rather than interest, because the minimal courtesy an interviewer can pay an interviewee is to be in possession of a few basic facts.

Just three nights later (and it was a hardback of more than 500 pages) I had read it from cover to cover and emerged at the end rather ashamed to have learned so much about someone I seemed to have known for so long.

His television series with Hattie Jacques is part of BBC folklore, but he also wrote dozens of scripts for the likes of Frankie Howerd and Tommy Cooper.

He also collaborated with Spike Milligan on The Goons’ scripts, when the man himself was in the grip of manic depression and in no fit state to commit another word to paper.

Eric’s was the household to which all the household names of the time made a bee-line – and he also appeared in big-budget films as well as performing in Shakespeare.

So there was plenty to talk about – but would he co-operate?

I had been down this road before; the bigger the name; the bigger the ego and the quicker you wanted the encounter to end.

I need not have worried.

Sykes was friendly, delightfully unstarry, warm, amusing and held, in the palm of his hand, an audience he could barely see or hear.

He was already deaf and his eyesight was deteriorating rapidly – but his connection with the paying public was based on timing, mutual affection and instinct.

It was a master-class in communication to which I was privileged to have a front-row seat.

Jimmy Carr? Graham Norton? Frankie Boyle? Comedians?

Don’t make me laugh.

Playing the hokey cokey with Cameron

David Cameron appears to have invented a new Westminster dance which will soon become known as the European Hokey Cokey.

The tune has a familiar ring to it, as the left leg of his party says in, the right says out, and while all this is going on the beleaguered prime minister is being shaken all about.

Brace yourselves, here comes the second verse.

He has ruled out an in-out referendum before the next election, after which he may be in or out, either way he may have to turn around because that’s what it’s all about.

This has led to at least five leading Tories informing their leader they are prepared to get out unless he wants in...