DAWSON’S TIMELESS GAGS G U R N but not forgotten

IT’S 30 years this week since Britain lost comic legend Les Dawson.

The Mancunian funnyman, who famously starred on shows like Blankety Blank, died from a heart attack on June 10, 1993.

Aged just 62, he left behind his widow Tracy and their daughter Charlotte.

Les gave us a host of wicked one-liners as his legacy. Here,

JAMES MOORE picks some of the gurning icon’s greatest gags…

Ours is a football marriage, we keep waiting for the other one to kick off.

My wife is a sex object – every time I ask for sex, she objects.

My father drank so heavily, when he blew on the birthday cake he lit the candles.

I wouldn’t say my wife’s ugly, but the milkman flirts with me.

My mother wanted me to be brought up at Eton. My father said he looks as if he’s been eaten and brought up.

I crossed a parrot with a hen… got an egg that tells you when it’s done.

I’ve got a friend who is a lion-tamer. He used to be a schoolteacher till he lost his nerve.

I’m so far behind with the mortgage repayments that the arrears are written in Latin.

When I was a lad my teeth stuck out so much mother rented me out as a till.

I went to the doctor and asked for something for persistent wind. He gave me a kite.

I’m not saying my mother didn’t like me, but she kept looking for loopholes in my birth certificate.

She was the flabbiest stripper I’ve ever seen. When she ran off the stage, she started her own applause.

My wife sent her photograph to the Lonely Hearts Club. They sent it back saying they weren’t that lonely.

The house was so damp the mice were strangled by an octopus.

I was in a play on TV once. It was one of those suspense plays. It kept you wondering... what’s on the other channels?

I used to sell furniture for a living. The trouble was, it was my own.

Marriage is an institution, and that’s where a couple finish up.

My dad was a small man. In fact, he suffered from athlete’s foot on his chin.

I wouldn’t say she was fat, but when she wants a new dress she goes to a quantity surveyor.

I said to the chemist, ‘Can I have some sleeping pills for the wife?’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘She keeps waking up’.

People think that it always rains in Manchester. Not true, though I admit it’s the only town in the country with a lifeboat drill on the bus.