Nicholas Parsons

He reached the grand age of 96 in extraordinarily good shape, and working very nearly to the end, but the death of Nicholas Parsons still comes as sad news. We certainly shall not see his like again – urbane, gentlemanly, infallibly well mannered, endlessly versatile, equally adept as comic and straight man, a true gentleman in a business where they are few and far between (despite so many more in the biz now being public school and university products). Though he was a professional through and through, and nobody's fool, Parsons' death marks the end of a gentler, more innocent era – and Just a Minute, if it survives, will never be the same again.
He was, of course, a frequent presence on this blog, not least as the first in an occasional series of Cravat Heroes, and more than once as Birthday Boy, most recently on his 95th birthday.
RIP.