Rags to riches: Steptoe scribe left £2million to his children

THE reunited Ant and Dec navigated an awkward chat with their ITV boss, Kevin Lygo, at a Royal Television Society conference yesterday. Lygo’s remark that the pair are ‘never any trouble’ caused panel chair Susanna Reid to raise an eyebrow. ‘Is that a slightly pointed remark?’ asked the Good Morning Britain presenter, who was too polite to delve into Ant McPartlin’s previous off-screen troubles.

WHO knew there was so much money in rags and bones? I can reveal that Ray Galton, who co-wrote the classic sitcom Steptoe And Son, left more than £2 million in his will.

In the comedy series, set in the fictional Oil Drum Lane in Shepherd’s Bush, London, ‘dirty old man’ Albert Steptoe and his aspirational son, Harold, scrape a living by spotting gems among other people’s junk.

Galton — who died last October aged 88 — was just 18 when he joined forces with fellow writer Alan Simpson.

The pair met in a sanatorium near Godalming, Surrey, during the Forties, where they were both suffering from tuberculosis.

The duo created one of the first sitcoms — Hancock’s Half Hour — based on characters and experiences, rather than jokes.

They went on to write Steptoe And Son, which, at its peak, attracted audiences of 28 million — unthinkable today. They also wrote for comedians Frankie Howerd and Les Dawson.

When Galton and Simpson co-wrote sketches for BBC radio, they earned five shillings a time.

By the time they were writing for Tony Hancock, they were earning an unimaginable 25 guineas a week. Now, Galton’s children can enjoy riches, not rags. The writer — whose wife Tonia died from cancer in 1995 — left a gross estate of £2.23 million.

Probate documents disclose that he gave a one-third share of his home, Ivy House in East Molesey, Surrey, on trust to his son, Andrew.

He had already given a one-third share of the property to his daughters, Lisa and Sara Galton, in 2012.

The sisters will also share a financial legacy, calculated using the amount of inheritance tax payable on his death, and they will receive a one-third share each of the rest of his estate.

According to the will, Andrew will receive his one- third portion of the rest of his father’s estate on trust.

Old Etonian Rory Stewart must be either the richest, the most prudent or the most honest of the recent Tory leadership candidates — he is the only one to have declared that he returned £30,000 of donations to his donors. One of those refunded £10,000 is Khaled Said, the son of Syrian-born billionaire Wafic Said.