Although he insists he’s no comedian, the broadcaster and writer has been making us laugh for more than 50 years

Smokers these days tend to keep a low profile. You see them huddled in shivering little groups outside office buildings or, more happily, at pavement café tables.

Barry Cryer enjoys his menthol cigarettes (and the odd pint of lager) but, as he points out, the packets are vital, too, because that’s where he jots down his ideas and jokes.

This star of panel games such as Radio 4’s legendary I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue (hereafter known as Clue) and Just a Minute and a gag writer for so many of our best-loved and sadly missed comics and performers – Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Danny La Rue – is renowned for his anecdotes. He just needs a word or a name to trigger a string of hilarious stories and quick one-liners.

When I was writing for Kenny Everett, he would always call me an honorary gay and he’d tease me, ‘Oh Baz,’ he’d say, ‘Married for 30 years and four children – what a smokescreen!’”

His latest book is called Butterfly Brain because, he says, it describes exactly what he does – flits around from subject to subject. The book is not just full of anecdotes but also hilarious footnotes, some surprising pictures and an index possibly compiled by a passing stranger. “I’m not a comedian,” Barry insists, as he makes the coffee, “I just hope I remember the right joke at the right time and get the right line to fit the subject and then go with the flow.”

There’s a study upstairs with a computer and books but it’s usually empty because Barry prefers to work at the kitchen table. “I’m basically a lazy man and lazy people tend to work hard to get it over with so I work very hard in bursts. I’m not a workaholic, I’m a people-aholic – I love noise and activity and I need other people as a springboard for ideas, which is why I have usually worked in a team or with at least one other person.”

These days he thrives on panel shows and has been a member of the Clue team since its first airing in 1972. Initially he alternated with Humphrey Lyttleton as chairman but has always much preferred to be a panellist alongside the regulars – Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and the late Willie Rushton.

“When Humph died in 2008 we kept being told that one of us should take over but we all said ‘no, it’s much more fun to be on the panel’. Actually, when Humph went it was so traumatic that we all thought we probably wouldn’t ever do the show again, but then the e-mails started coming in – thousands of them – begging us to do the show. So we had a year of mourning out of respect before coming back last year. The mourning has gone now and it feels more like a homage. I remember Humph said to us one day, ‘Now, if I go under a bus I don’t want any displays of loyalty!’”

Barry had known Humph for half a century. The two met outside Leeds town hall in 1955. Barry was singing in a jazz band for charity when Humph came over and introduced himself. “He said to me, ‘ I heard you singing with the band…’ and I preened myself, ready for the compliment. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t difficult, you’re quite loud.’ And we were friends ever afterwards.” Barry still sings both on Clue and on his touring show, Still Alive, which he and pianist Colin Sell have been taking round the country for the past 20 years with a selection of jokes, anecdotes and poems.

“We are an unknown hit in arts centres and suchlike, but it’s nothing like the touring version of Clue where we have audiences of over 2000. Last year we did 23 shows in 19 days – it was literally a different town every day.”

When the tour was over Barry was more than happy to come home to be with his darling wife Terry. The couple have been married for 47 years and it was the longest they had been apart in all that time. “I met Terry the very same day I met Ronnie Corbett – if I’d tossed a coin I might have married him!” he says.

Barry was born in 1935 in Leeds. His father, John Carl Cryer, was a golfing accountant and a Mason who died when Barry was five. “It was meningitis I discovered much later but at the time my mother never spoke about him, which really hurt me, but she was a one-man woman and it was too painful. When he died she just told me he was poorly and it was a kid at school who shouted out one day, in that cruel way kids do, ‘Your dad’s dead!’ So I hit him and came home and then, of course, it was very emotional but then never mentioned again. My mother was wonderful and totally supportive but not at all demonstrative.”

His brother, Peter, was nine years older and in the Merchant Navy at the time. “We had a strange relationship. We got on fine but we didn’t really know each other. So it was all very Freudian – not knowing my dad or my brother. My memories of my father are so fragmentary and strange. There’s no 16mm film of him, no recording of his voice and very few pictures, so it was very weird. I always say it was the classic gay upbringing.

“When I was writing for Kenny Everett, he would always call me an honorary gay and he’d tease me, ‘Oh Baz,’ he’d say, ‘Married for 30 years and four children – what a smokescreen!’”

I worked in a wonderful era but I hate people of my generation who knock the younger comedians and say they only tell dirty jokes – there were things I wrote and performed back then that make me cringe now. But you can’t have bland, inoffensive comedy – it has to go over the line.”

From school Barry went to Leeds University to read English Literature. He lasted a year. “I always say I failed because of the Second World War. It was 16 years earlier but upset me very deeply! In fact it was because I spent my time chasing girls and drinking a lot.”

Dropping out of university turned out to be a good career move. Barry and his friends were all writing for shows and he thought for a while that he might be a journalist, but he was spotted telling jokes at a student show and offered work. “In one hand I had my first year results and this offer in the other and I sort of went with the flow.”

He spent a time touring in shows with doubtful titles, Fanny Get Your Fun and We’ve Nothing on Tonight and on a whim bought a train ticket to London, walked into the Windmill Theatre and a 10.30am audition with the manager, Vivian Van Damm. “This voice from the darkness said, ‘Know any more songs? Know any more jokes?’ Then, in a state of shock, I was taken to a dressing room and two hours later I was on stage. There were six shows that day and between each one I’d be in his office having my act reshaped.”

From there it was very much a matter of being in the right place at the right time that led Barry to write for Danny La Rue’s shows where he was spotted by David Frost and joined John Cleese and Marty Feldman to produce scripts for The Frost Report. “It was all a complete accident but I’ve been dogged by good luck all my life,” he says with a laugh.

The key to Barry’s contentment is his marriage. He met Terry in the early Sixties when he was writing for Danny La Rue. “Terry had been in panto with him and he offered her work in his nightclub show. I took one look at her and knew there was something and so we started, in that quaint phrase, going out together.” Eventually Barry popped the question.

“We were walking a friend’s five dogs and Terry had been to an audition but hadn’t got the part so, to cheer her up, I said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’ And she said, ‘Oh, that’s much too important, I’ll tell you tomorrow.’ So the next day we were out with the dogs again and she said, ‘The answer to your question is yes,’ and I said, ‘What question?’”

She forgave him – although Barry claims she threw one of the dogs at him first – and they seem to have the perfect relationship that has produced three sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren. “The secret is that we’ve never understood each other,” he says. “Boredom kills more relationships than you can imagine. Also I never inflict my jokes on her, although she’s very loyal and will laugh at them in the theatre.”

As well as love and affection Terry brought Barry relief from the chronic eczema that had plagued him throughout his twenties and effectively put an end to a stage career. “I was hospitalised several times,” he says. “People think eczema is just an itch and a scratch but it isn’t and of course the treatments in those days were horrible. At times I looked like the invisible man – bandaged all over and with gloves and dark glasses. It’s a lot better now – actually I only went into hospital once after I met Terry and today’s treatments with antibiotics and creams are so much better.”

Barry’s modest about his own achievements and repeats he is not a comedian. “Comedians have to have that something extra – there’s personality, timing, material and then something special that you can never pin down which makes them great. I can tell jokes and stories but people like Eddie Izzard, Ross Noble, Bill Bailey – they make connections. “I worked in a wonderful era but I hate people of my generation who knock the younger comedians and say they only tell dirty jokes – there were things I wrote and performed back then that make me cringe now. But you can’t have bland, inoffensive comedy – it has to go over the line. Years ago, people were outraged by Monty Python,The Life of Brian and Till Death Us Do Part. I’m quite cosy on stage now and I avoid swearing too much because I’d be accused of trying to be like the younger ones. And I don’t get heckled any more, which I really miss.”

After more than 50 years in the business Barry feels a bit of a survivor – so many friends and colleagues are no longer around. “I suppose the one thing in its favour is that when I get up there, which I am not planning for quite a while, we’ll never be short of laughs.”

Butterfly Brain by Barry Cryer is published by Orion Books at  £14.99.