Stanley Unwin

Stanley Unwin, comedian and writer: born Pretoria 7 June 1911; married (one son, two daughters); died Daventry, Northamptonshire 12 January 2002.

In the 1930s, "double-talk artists" enjoyed a brief craze in American show business. Comedians such as Jackie Gleason and the long-forgotten Cliff Nazarro and Al Kelly spouted nonsense words like "kopasetic", "franistan", "strismic" and "kravistate". Their double-talk was usually used to hoodwink a stooge and was delivered briskly, loudly and aggressively. Britain's Stanley Unwin, however, delivered his own brand of double-talk in the most benign way, and his surrealist talent for verbal gobbledegook brought him more than five decades of success in radio, television, stage and films.

Born in South Africa, he was only three when he moved to England with his widowed mother, who, thanks to extreme poverty, was forced to place him in an orphanage. After marrying and becoming a parent himself, he began inventing special "fairly stories" for his children at bedtime. "Are you all sitting comfity-bold, two-square on your botties?" he would ask them. "Then I'll begin. Once a-ponny tight-o . . ." He would then launch into a well-known children's story, liberally festooned with his own unique brand of gibberish.

In 1940, after chronic seasickness put paid to a career as a radio operator with the Merchant Navy, Unwin was hired by the BBC as a sound engineer, and assigned to on-the-spot war broadcasts around the world. To ease the tension in often dangerous "bangy-bangy, boomy-boomy" situations, he entertained the unit just as he had entertained his "childers", peppering his impromptu "performages" with favourite words and phrases like "Oh, folly, folly!", "falollop" and "Deep joy".

Later, while working in the Features unit, he was introduced to the works of James Joyce. He told his long-time friend the writer and broadcaster Michael Pointon that a Joyceian phrase about a "troutling stream" opened windows for him.

The word spread in broadcasting circles that in their midst was a man just too naturally funny to remain on the other side of the microphone. While working for BBC Midlands, he was given his own show, in which he reduced sports commentating to riotous gibberish. Soon he was popping up all over the radio dial, as well as accepting outside offers for what he referred to as "after-dinner speaklode". He received fan letters from the likes of J.B. Priestley, Joyce Grenfell and Sean O'Casey, and many jazz musicians, who loved his verbal riffing. Unwin was a great jazz fan, his favourite instrument being "the saxophobia". He also enjoyed "Mozarkers and other composies of classicold musee".

Along with Frank Muir, Denis Norden, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Johnny Speight, Dave Freeman and other writers, I contributed to Bernard Braden's television series Early to Braden (1957-1958), in which Stanley Unwin was Resident Interviewee. Unwin always called Braden "my best ever straight man", as he conducted their TV interviews with proper solemnity. He also greatly admired Ted Ray, who first dubbed him "Professor".

Eric Sykes was a fan of Unwin's, and used him in his ATV specials. Another was Jimmy Tarbuck, whose standup-cum-sketch series Tell Tarby (1973) employed Unwin to wrap his gobbledegook around such topics as nostalgia, hobbies, the weather, the National Health Service, television and sex. Live television needed someone like Unwin: if a show was under-running, he could be counted on to talk unscripted for any length of time. He appeared on The David Nixon Show, The Dickie Henderson Show, Lunch Box, and in his own starring series Unwin Time.

He starred in pantomime, and even made a few films, appearing in Cardew Robinson's school spoof Fun at St Fanny's (1956), and in Inn for Trouble (1960). He said his favourite film role was as the Landlord in Carry On Regardless (1961), because it gave him the chance to appear with Kenneth Williams. In one scene, Williams speaks to him in fluent Unwinese, and "Kenny got the rhythm perfectly".

Unwin's Lewis Carrollian sense of nonsense made him ideal casting for the eccentric Chancellor of Vulgaria in the children's musical fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). That same year he became briefly trendy: the pop group the Small Faces chose him to provide the narration for their 1968 concept album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake.

Over the years he lent his "Unwinese" to television commercials for Pirelli tyres, Gale's honey and Trebor Mints, but best remembered is his 1960 celebration of "cheery-bold, lip-smackery" Flower's Keg Bitter. His voice and verbal pyrotechnics emerged from "Father Stanley", a genial lookalike priest in Gerry Anderson's puppet series The Secret Service (1968-69), and from a character in the cartoon show Rex the Runt. John Lennon's book of prose In His Own Write (1964) bears an unmistakable Unwinian influence, and he was impersonated regularly on the Seventies television show Who Do You Do? by both Freddie Starr and Peter Goodwright.

Unwin's first book was The Miscillian Manuscript (1961), a beautifully illustrated study of an oh-so-fictitious island. Other literary efforts included House and Garbidge (1962), Rock-a-bye Babel and Two Fairly Stories (1966) and, in 1984, his autobiography, Deep Joy. He loved writing and reading. Once, during a long journey from Wales to London, he gently chided me, as an American, for the jargon my nation has inflicted on the planet. "I love the English language, Vosloads," he said. "Even though I do terrible, terrible things to it."

Frances, Stanley Unwin's wife for more than 50 years, died in 1993. Last June, Michael Pointon and Paul Foxall made a personal video that was shown to Unwin on his 90th birthday. Taking part were such admirers as Ken Dodd, Jim Davidson, Norman Wisdom and Peter Goodwright. Bill Wyman, another fan, sent flowers.

Dick Vosburgh