Bye-Bye Eddie

Eddie Braben has died. Most people will know him as the writer of the 1970s 'Morecambe & Wise' shows, a task he relished but hated in equal measure. A naturally funny man, he first got a big break writing for Ken Dodd, who lived 100 yards away from him, and they both lived 200 yards from me. Ken's house was (and is) an old cottage at the roadside opposite the church, but Eddie's was a normal suburban villa- until you saw the colossal satellite dish on his roof- this was in 1972, twenty years before the modern ubiquitous dish- and, if the side window was open, the faux-leopardskin wallpaper of Eddie's writing room. We sometimes saw him hurrying out of his front door, black hair awry, papers in his teeth, putting on a coat and diving into a taxi. We learned later he was catching a train to London to rehearse a new Morecambe & Wise show. We never had the nerve to say hello, but the fact that such a well-known scriptwriter lived at the bottom of my street gave me some sort of idea that you could be a success and still work from home. Maybe it's true. Goodbye, Eddie, and thanks for the millions of laughs!