So it's farewell to the master of gibberish

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A.� Yes. Stanley Unwin, a peculiarly English phenomenon, has died aged 90. During his 45-year career on radio, TV and film, he made talking nonsense into an art form. His skill was to turn everyday phrases into amusing variations. From a distance it sounded as if he was talking normally ... but he wasn't. Talking of his interests, for example, he said he enjoyed 'Mozarkers and other composies of classicold musee'. < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� How did he create this gobbledegook

A.� When Unwin was a boy, his mother fell over in the street. Dazed, she told young Stanley she had 'falloloped over and grozed her knee'.

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Q.� So what was the leap between that incident and his rise to become a radio star

A.� He developed the nonsense talk into bedtime stories for his children. 'Fairly stories' he called them ... and they would usually begin: 'Are you all sitting comfity-bold, two-square on your botties Then I'll begin. Once a-ponny tight-o ...' Then he got into radio.

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Q.� How

A.� His career as a radio operator in the Merchant Navy was ruined by chronic seasickness and then the BBC hired him as a sound engineer, often assigned with frontline war reporters. To ease the tension in often dangerous 'bangy-bangy, boomy-boomy' conditions, he entertained the radio unit just as he had amused his children. The word spread.

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Q.� And ...

A.� While working for BBC Midlands, he was given his own show. Highlight of his 'performage' was a piece on sports commentating, reduced to riotous nonsense. Soon he was appearing on many radio shows, as well as accepting offers for what he called 'after-dinner speaklode'. Fan letters flooded in from all over the country - and from the famous, too, including J B Priestley, Joyce Grenfell and Sean O'Casey. Jazz musicians in particular loved his verbal improvisation. He even got into a few films. He became known as Professor Stanley Unwin and one of his catchphrases was: 'Deep joy!'

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Q.� Such as

A.� Cardew Robinson's school spoof Fun at St Fanny's (1956); Inn for Trouble (1960); and the Landlord in Carry On Regardless (1961), when Kenneth Williams also speaks in fluent Unwinese. He also played the eccentric Chancellor of Vulgaria in the musical fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). Then he went a little psychedelic.

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Q.� You're kidding

A.� He was narrator for the Small Faces' 1968 concept album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. TV commercial also followed, including Trebor Mints, Gale's Honey and Flower's Bitter ('cheery-bold, lip-smackery'). Unwin, who had eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, continued his unique bedtime stories to the end. He died in hospital in Daventry, Northamptonshire, surrounded by his family.

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Q.� Favourite phrases

A.� A story about an exploding TV set became: All of a sudlode there was a great explodimost. A great follolloping flame all scintilade of obnoxious fumey all chokeit.

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Of Colonel Sanders, he once observed: He was the fry chicky-flame with tasty jaws savoury-seeky herby blend.

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Of Elvis Presley: Tilty hibbers'n stick out the torso'n wobble both knee-clappers'n singit lonesome tonight.

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Steve Cunningham