Start day laughing with the Skegness Standard's special tribute to Sir Ken Dodd

Robin Hunter-Clark said: “I was incredibly fortunate to have got to know him in a very small way, whilst working the summer seasons at the Embassy Theatre, Skegness.

“Every single year when Ken returned to perform he always remembered me as Robin, the young Skegness councillor. He genuinely loved Skegness. He always remarked that he ‘had to return every year to have his teeth fixed - because it’s SO Bracing’!

“Anne, his partner was always trying to hurry him along, but he never budged until he was ready to do so.

“Anne by the way is lovely, and what a team they were!

“Ken would joke not to worry, ‘that you’ll be going home in the daylight’, and ‘the sooner you laugh, the sooner you can go home’.

“But yet they wanted more!

“Yes 2AM could strike, and a standing ovation later, the packed audience was still cheering for more Ken Dodd.

“A bit of a contrast to modern day comedians who can barely manage an hour of material.

“2AM you cry! That was the latest (or earliest depending on how you look at it) I personally experienced. I didn’t leave the theatre until well after 3AM that evening. Ken had been known to finish much later than that even. You certainly got value for money.

“Ken - you brought so much happiness to the world. And that was your goal wasn’t it? You achieved it.I t was a privilege to have known you.

“They’ll never be another Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd; Artist, Model, and failed accountant.

“Rest in Peace.”

YOUR TOP 10 JOKES

Reader Barry Ormrod came up with these favourite jokes from the Ken Dodd shows:

1 Fifty-five years in show business, ladies and gentlemen. That’s a hell of a long time to wait for a laugh.

2 Do I believe in safe sex? Of course I do. I have a handrail around the bed.

3 I’ve seen a topless lady ventriloquist. Nobody has ever seen her lips move

4 Honolulu: it’s got everything: sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife’s mother.

5 I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.

6 Tonight when you get home, put a handful of ice cubes down your wife’s nightie and say: ‘There’s the chest freezer you always wanted’.

7 The man who invented cats’ eyes got the idea when he saw the eyes of a cat in his headlights. If the cat had been going the other way, he would have invented the pencil sharpener.

8 I used to think I was marvellous in bed until I discovered that all my girlfriends suffered from asthma.

9 Regarding his famous tax fraud trial: I told the Inland Revenue I didn’t owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.

10 I thought it would be a good idea to go into politics. Maybe I am a little old, but you know, I’d love to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That way I’ll be reunited with my money.

*See today’s Skegness Standard for our special tribute.