THERE WAS SOMETHING DARK ABOUT CLEMENT

I FIRST met Nicholas Parsons in 1969, when I was 21, at a Christmas party given by the TV cook Fanny Cradock. We were friends for 50 years.

With his affability, versatility, consummate professionalism and lifelong appetite for work, he was certainly a role model.

In his 96th year, Nicholas (below) was still hosting my favourite radio panel game Just A Minute and, to the very last, at the top of his game.

When it was first broadcast in 1967, Clement Freud was on the original panel. He was famous in those days as a television chef, with a lugubrious manner, best known for appearing in commercials promoting dog food.

When he was older, he had a favourite line: ‘I used to ask women to come upstairs and have sex, but now it has to be one or the other.’

That joke does not seem so amusing today. In 2016, seven years after his death, three women accused him of child sexual abuse and rape, accusations which led to a police investigation and a public apology from his widow.

I knew nothing of the allegations, but I knew him for over 40 years.

Certainly, he made you laugh, but he also, always, made you feel a bit uneasy, and seemed to relish doing so. When I was an aspiring Conservative MP and he was an established Liberal one, he invited me to lunch a few times.

At the end of the meal, when the bill arrived, although he was nominally the host, he would suggest a little gambling game. It involved making a calculated guess relating to the bill.

Whoever lost would pick up the tab. Needless to say, I always fell for it, and Clement always won.

He needed to win. He played to win. And never more so than when taking part in Just A Minute. His principal tactic was to carefully watch the clock and then interrupt when there was only a second or so to go, and thus claim the prize at the finishing line.

And once, when I was about to move ahead of him in the game, he deliberately knocked my glass of water into my lap. I am reasonably competitive myself, but I was certainly outclassed. As the years went by, I noticed he kept less company with the rest of us before and after the show. He often ate alone.

We were uncomfortable with him and he was uncomfortable with us. I always thought he was an odd one. It seems that he was darker than we realised.