Humhprey Lyttelon, 1921 – 2008

I caught the last few seconds of Newsnight Review to see a picture of Humphrey Lyttleton and my heart sank. It turned out that he died this evening at seven o’ clock. Humph and ISIHAC hold a special attraction for me.

I first discovered Humphrey Lyttelton where I would probably hear him most often; in my father’s car. He was chairing I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, one of the silliest and funniest radio programmes ever to be broadcast. It turned an obscure station on the Northern line – Mornington Crescent – into a monument to the character of the English, made familiar figures out of the lovely Samantha and the rippling Sven and, on more than one occasion, caused Dad to pull onto the hard shoulder because the risk of him causing an accident because he and I were laughing at Humph on the radio.

When I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue was commissioned, radio comedy was in a sorry state. Consisting almost entirely of panel games, it was bland and it was formulaic. The show was to be an unscripted version of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again; if jazz was the antidote to scripted music, who better to lead the antidote to panel games than a famous jazz trumpter – ‘Humph’.

I suspect that for many people, Humphrey Lyttelton was first and foremost the chair of ISIHAC. He was, of course, a fantastic musicia; indeed, he was described by Louis Armstrong as ‘that cat in England who swings his ass off’. His dedication to music, I think, is without question. In September 1943, he landed at Salerno with a pistol in one hand and his trumpet in the other. I won’t say any more than that it is well worth listening to any one of his records. Incidentally, his own record label was Calligraph, named after one of his passions, calligraphy. He was the president of the Society for Italic Handwriting and was at one point a cartoonist of some note.

Humph was sent to a steel mill in Port Talbot as a young man to see if he had the makings of a captain of industry. The outcome was rather the opposite, as he became a lifelong socialist, albeit, as he described himself, ‘a romantic socialist.

Lyttelton was, despite his protestations to the contrary, modern to the last. His website, humphreylyttleton.com, carries a message that ends with Humph in introspective mode.

“As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication.”

I think it is fair to say that Lyttelton was silly – gloriously, wonderfully silly – throughout his life.

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, cartoonist, calligrapher, columnist, jazz trumpeter and host of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Born Eton, 23 May 1921, died London, 25 April 2008.

xD.