Last month one of his sons, Ned, said his father was in an aged care facility and was mostly “non-verbal”.

“For those of you who don’t know, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around five years ago,” Ned wrote. “He’s now non verbal most of the time (mind-blowing for me but also any of you that know him).”

Very sad way to go out for both himself and his family and friends. I’ll always remember the days watching George Negus Tonight as a youngster, not really understanding what any of it was about. It used to come on after the kids shows finished so I usually watched a bit of it before dinner.