Working with and being a chum of Geoffrey Perkins is as good as it gets in the world of television and radio production. A man of many virtues and talents, he was above all else funny and he has left the world a funnier place. His credits are astonishing. You may know them, but they are worth repeating: 'I am sorry I haven't a clue', 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', 'Norbert Smith- A Life', 'Father Ted', 'Friday and Saturday Live' 'Spitting Image', 'Harry Enfield's Television Progrmme', 'Smashy and Nicey', 'The Thin Blue Line', 'The Fast Show', 'Jonathan Creek', 'My Family', 'Blackadder;Back and Forth'; 'The Catherine Tate Show', 'Swiss Tony' and 'Benidorm' number amongst them. Quite remarkable. Geoffrey had a Midas touch when it came to comedy, often needing to employ alchemic skills to produce the gold. He was great unearther of talent; a great developer of that talent and then great at continuing to get the best out of talented artists whatever lofty status they had reached. He was the King-Maker of Comedy as well as a King of Comedy himself. I first alighted upon him in the Grapes pub beside the Cavern in my native Liverpool in 1975. I was still a student. It was the first of many thousand of pints together. He, a returning hero from the Edinburgh Fringe where he had won Best Newcomer Award (as an actor!), had embarked on a highly inappropriate and, for both parties, mercifully brief career in shipping. He was a delight and helped to steer me to an inappropriate career in showbiz when I could have become a perfectly respectable lawyer. He has lead many other a person astray since and he soon found his own professional metier. He joined BBC Radio and never looked back. I recall him haring around the Edinburgh Fringe in 1976 with an impossible schedule and a stopwatch, devouring shows as his room-mates, Griff Rhys Jones and me, took a more leisurely approach. We were in awe of his enthusiasm and appetite for comedy and this awe and appetite never diminished. Geoffrey never had a bad word to say about anybody, whatever the provocation, and nobody had a bad word to say about him. He was a genuinely special individual; loyal, brilliant, generous, kind, modest,supportive, strangely good at pub quizes and bloody funny. His colleagues dearly loved him and his well-honed showbiz anecdotes and they share in the deep sorrow surrounding his death and in offering his lovely and loving family heartfelt sympathy . Their loss is devastating. Two red letter days in my life are meeting Geoffrey and then, a quarter of a century later, persuading him to leave the mothership BBC, where his record was impeccable, to join us at Tiger Aspect, guaranteeing our own Gold standard. What fun we have enjoyed together, at work and play. I have not yet come to terms with the fact that I will not be sharing more anecdotes and pints with dear Geoffrey and doubt that I ever will. He will always be part of us and of me. Peter Bennett-Jones