PIONEERING female broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewe l l wasn’t always a model of propriety.

Recalling her early days at the BBC, the woman dubbed ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ in less enlightened times told Roger Bolton’s

Beeb Watch podcast: ‘People could phone in, we sometimes faked that and phoned in our own messages. Various people used to do that, Barry Humphries being one because he could do a multitude of voices, and would pretend to ring up and say: “I’m absolutely shocked and disgusted by what’s on BBC television at the moment.” ’ Humphries was surplus to requirements once clean-up campaigner Mary Whitehouse got into her stride.