THE wife of Sir Ken Dodd has paid tribute to her comedian husband, saying he just “wanted to make people happy”.
Lady Anne Dodd, who married her partner of 40 years just two days before his death, added he was the “most life-enhancing, brilliant, creative” man.
Speaking outside their home, Lady Dodd said: “I have lost a most wonderful husband.
“I’ve had the supreme joy and privilege of working and living with him as partner for the past 40 years.
“The world has lost a most life enhancing, brilliant, creative comedian with an operatically trained voice who just wanted to make people happy.
“He lived to perfect his art and entertain his live and adoring audiences.”
The comedian, famous for his stand-up shows, as well as his Diddy Men and tickling stick, died at the home where he was born in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash.
Sir Ken was being treated at the Liverpool Heart and Chest hospital for six weeks with a chest infection before being discharged a fortnight ago.
Sir Ken continued to perform right through to his later years, bringing the energy and stamina of a man half his age to his manic routines in theatres up and down the land.
Even when he was taken to hospital for a “minor operation” on New Year’s Eve in 2007, it came just hours after completing a four-hour sell-out gig at Liverpoool’s Philharmonic Hall.
The entertainer’s career kicked off after his father bought a Punch and Judy for his eighth birthday, and he began charging school friends twopence to sit on orange boxes and watch the puppets.
It was a penny to stand at the back and a cigarette card for the hard-up.
A WIFE'S TRIBUTE: Lady Anne Dodd remembers husband Ken as a 'brilliant, creative comedian'
I have lost a most wonderful husband.
We met when I was in the Ken Dodd Christmas Show in 1961 at Manchester Opera House.
I’ve had the supreme joy and privilege of working and living with him as partner for the past 40 years.
The world has lost a most life enhancing, brilliant, creative comedian with an operatically trained voice who just wanted to make people happy.
He lived to perfect his art and entertain his live and adoring audiences.
I have been overwhelmed by love and affection which I have already received from dear friends and the public and I thank you all for being here.
I’m not used to this. I’m used to being in the background.
He left school at 14 and worked with his brother Bill, heaving Arley cobbles and Houlton kitchen nuts for six years as part of his father’s business.
But in his spare time, the former choirboy was singing and developing a stand-up comic routine at working men’s clubs – script by his father, costumes and general support by Mrs Dodd.
He would describe himself as “Professor Yaffle Chuckabutty. Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter.”
The Theatre Royal, Nottingham, saw his £75-a-week debut in 1954 as Professor Chuckabutty, and within two years he was topping the bill at Blackpool, with bits such as the famous Diddy Men, the Broken Biscuit Repair Works, the Jam Butty Mines, the Moggy Ranch and the Treacle Wells.
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He was awarded an OBE in 1982 and was dubbed a knight by the Duke of Cambridge in 2017 – the year of his 90th birthday – in recognition of both his comedic legacy and his charity work.
For the milestone birthday on November 8, he was honoured by the Knotty Ash community with a party serving up jam butties and Diddy pies at Liverpool Town Hall.
As he marked more than 60 years of performing he vowed to his fans: “I can’t let the British public down, as long as they keep turning up – I’ll be there to give back the enormous happiness they’ve given me.”
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