Barry Cryer: The comedy legend, 77, at the Middlesex home he's shared with his wife Terry for 45 years

Barry Cryer: The comedy legend, 77, at the Middlesex home he's shared with his wife Terry for 45 years

By Peter Robertson

PUBLISHED: 17:56 EST, 11 January 2013 | UPDATED: 09:09 EST, 12 January 2013

My haven: Barry Cryer in the home he shares with wife Terry

THE SHOW GOES ON

I’ve been in showbiz since 1956, and I’ve worked on the Radio 4 show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue since it began in 1972. This poster features what was the regular cast for many years â€" myself, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and the late Willie Rushton and Humphrey Lyttelton. Last year we did a stage version and 2,000 people came to each show. If the audience were our age they’d  be dying off, but we attract all ages â€" we’re like an old rock band!

FURRY FRIEND

I bought this doggie draught excluder in Pitlochry, Scotland, about three years ago after I did the Edinburgh Fringe. I call him George Draught after the film star George Raft. I’m fond of George as we used to have four Labrador crossbreeds â€" they’re in the painting behind me â€" and I miss them. We won’t have any more as I’m out a lot and Terry â€" who I proposed to on a  dog-walk in Hyde Park â€" would get lumbered with all the walking.

MUM’S THE WORD

In the 80s I used to pretend to be a Scottish stand-up when I appeared on shows like The Good Old Days, so I got a kilt and this Tam O’Shanter. I was actually born in Leeds so I’m a Yorkshireman like my Dad, John. He was an accountant, but died when I was five and I have very few memories of him, which is a big sadness. My mum Jean was wonderful bringing up my brother and I.  She died in 1986 and spent her last years in our granny flat next door.

MY SUPERSTITION

Upstairs in my study I have the modern technology for emailing and the internet, but I have a strange superstition: whenever I do an  after-dinner speech or a corporate event I write a special poem and I always type it  on this Hermes 300 typewriter. I bought it in the 70s and it’s an old friend, tried and true. It’ll conk out one day â€" it’s already lost its capitals so I’m a bit like ee cummings in that everything’s now in lower case.

GOLDEN GIRL

This 1962 brochure for a Danny La Rue show at Winston’s Nightclub features me and my wife Terry, who was then a singer. I met her rehearsing for that show on the same day I first met Ronnie Corbett â€" I tossed a coin and decided to marry her! Earlier this year we celebrated our Golden wedding. The key is we’ve never understood each other; we don’t row but we argue all the time. I once said to her, ‘We disagree about everything’, and she replied, ‘No, we don’t!’

MEET MY CLAN

These two photos were taken 20 years apart of our four children in exactly the same poses at our 1900 corner house in Middlesex, which we bought for £10,400 in 1967. Of our sons, Tony’s a university professor, Dave’s a computer wizard and Bob’s an actor and writer. Our daughter Jackie is a former singer who now conducts choirs. We’ve got seven grandchildren and I love being a grandad. We’re a very close family and have regular get-togethers.

Mrs Hudson's Diaries: A View From The Landing At 221b by Barry Cryer and Bob Cryer is published by The Robson Press.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: The Best of Forty Years is released by Preface Publishing.