Fame and Terry Wogan.

Terry Wogan with Princess Diana.

Celebrity is a strange thing isn't it? It's a bit like profit, or getting paid, who wins the Oscar, which picture has grossed the most last week.

Never which picture is the grossest?

Last week the nation's heart was broken with the death of Terry Wogan.

It was on the front of every newspaper here – and there are lots of national newspaper dailies here – and the two shittiest newspapers (I refer you to the thought above), The Daily Mirror and The Sun, published the same headline on the front page – Thank you for Being Our Friend. And a photo of Terry Wogan with it.

The Daily Mail, surely the worst kind of right wing newspaper (they even supported Hitler, so they say) had some kind of Wogan v Bowie feature which, I'm sure you will agree is an example of very bad taste.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say a bad or a negative word about Terry Wogan – I'm sure they will come out of the woodwork – as everybody here loved him.

He was a wonderful human being, had a wonderful voice, great Limerick Irish accent, was quick witted, kind a cuddly.

He was ostensibly a radio deejay and commentator. When JFK visited Ireland in the 60s his was the voice that described the visit but after he came to England and became a deejay it was quite obvious that this was no airhead spin jockey. His quick wit and love of words and the fact that he never let politics mar either his shows or judgement, endeared him to the listeners and eventually viewers of Britain that by the time he died last Sunday the nation was in shock.

Yet he was largely unknown in America.

His position on the pro list of the IMDb – the Internet Movie Data Base – was about the same as mine; this is because the IMDb is mainly American even though it is a British company which is centred in Bristol. (guess who bought it? Yes – Amazon).

David Bowie on the other hand was known the world over. His star was not as large as Terry Wogan's here in fact it could be said that only a minority of the population knew many Bowie songs. I knew loads because I still have a lot of his albums – on vinyl of course.

So that's all I have to say about our two late friends – they joined, in January, quite a few fellow artists, stars and even garters who we lost, including Ed (stewpot) Stewart, Alan Rickman, Brian Bedford, Glenn Frey and Frank Finlay (whom I worked with) and more.

Terry's fame was national and he lived in Windsor near The Queen but what is fame?

Many years ago I did some radio commercials for Chiltern Radio; they were, or maybe still are, in Bedfordshire and I was a regular listener as I liked the music they played. When I went in the front door of the building, just behind the receptionist, there was a reel to reel tape recorder on the wall which was recording the entire output of the station which I could hear.

As I walked along the hall to the little studio where I was to record, I could see through a glass door a man sitting behind a desk with a microphone in front of him. He was the only person in the room and he was speaking to a few hundred thousand listeners in the county of Bedfordshire.

What I found crazy was the fact that he was the only person in the room – I couldn't see any producers because of the angle of my view, so he looked like some kid in his bedroom playing records and pretending to be a deejay - maybe that's the secret?

When I had finished my recording, he was coming out of his little cave – a man cave they call them these days (deez daze) – and in the street I saw him driving out in his new car.

On the side of the car was his name - let's say it was Harry Smith and underneath his name was nearly famous sponsored by . . . . whatever the make of the car was.

Incidentally, and I may have mentioned this before, on one of the days the producer asked me to say 'Chiltern Classified Pools Check at Five Forty' and nothing else; I did this and every Saturday after that at five forty pm that ident would introduce the football scores.

Many years later I was driving up the M1 in the Bedfordshire area, at about that time on a Saturday, and I tuned in and there was my voice still churning out the same message.

Strange thing isn't it, fame – bye bye Tel' - thanks.