I was very sad to hear of the death of Tim Brooke-Taylor, especially so since it seems he succumbed to Covid-19.

I suppose most people will remember him from The Goodies (goody, goody, yum-yum.) However, Taylor’s “character” in that series always seemed to me to be composed too much of the upper-class English twit, which did him an injustice.

I first encountered him, though in the radio show I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again, (episodes of which are available on the iPlayer) in which he played many parts but most notably for me, Lady Constance de Coverlet, a woman of bountiful proportions the source of many jokes, and perenially man-mad.

One particular memory I have of the character came in the serial “Professor Prune and The Electric Time Trousers” where in one episode the show’s perenially popular dog Spot was carried away in the time trousers along with the Professor. “Come back, Professor,” said Lady Constance. “Come back, Spot.”

“Come back Spot?” came the query, as if mystified by her affection for a dog.

Lady Constance – “I chase anything in trousers.”

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor: 17/7/1940 – 12/4/2020. So it goes.

Monty Python didn’t come out of nowhere. There was a ferment among English comedic talent following in the wake of Beyond the Fringe in the early to mid-60s, with individuals coming together in various combinations, splitting apart and recoalescing in TV shows like At Last the 1948 Show and Do Not Adjust Your Set as well as the immortal radio comedy I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again – two of whose songs have appeared in this category previously – before the main players settled down into their most famous incarnations as Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Goodies.

I first remember hearing this classic (I can’t bring myself to categorise it as music however) on I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again but it had been performed earlier in At Last the 1948 Show and it also counts towards those singles from my elder brother’s record collection – see this category numbers 53-56.

John Cleese with the 1948 show choir: The Ferret Song from the 1948 Show