The first comedy programme I can ever remember seeing as a child in the 1960s was the Illustrated Weekly Hudd.

I never imagined that 25 years later I would be one of Roy Hudd's scriptwriters but in 1990 I had my first one-liner broadcast on his flagship BBC Radio 2 topical comedy show, the News Huddlines. After a couple of series I was made a commissioned (ie retained) gag writer and a few weeks later a commissioned sketch writer too. Over the next 11 years, until the 'Hudds' finally came off the air at the end of 2001, many writers came and went but I always managed to keep my commissioned status. Altogether I had around 100 sketches, a few songs and about 250 one-liners broadcast in the 23 series I wrote for the show. Material was also used on 2 BBC spin-off audio cassettes, in a Huddlines book, on  a BBC TV Pebble Mill feature (also repeated on  BBC TV's South Today) and on Radio 3's Turns of the Century.

In 1995 I was asked to appear on a Meridian TV revival of the classic panel game What's My Line? Roy and his Huddlines colleague June Whitfield were resident panellists and the idea was to bring me out as a 'mystery contestant' and see if they could guess on the TV that I was one of their writers from the radio. The show still occasionally gets repeated (Challenge TV showed it 10 times in 2002 alone!) and Roy mentions it to this day.

I originally agreed to this TV appearance because it was an honour to be asked to go on the programme with Roy and June. I also thought the publicity might bring in a little bit of writing work. In fact, it ended up leading, in a round about way, to a speaking career which continues 12 years later!

Public Speaking Tip #72: Accepting a single invitation to speak in public could lead to a huge number of other, unforeseen opportunities, sometimes for many years afterwards.

The picture shows me and my partner Val with Roy after his excellent one-man show at Bournemouth Pier Theatre, Whitsun 2005 - exactly 10 years after that What's My Line? recording. The photo was taken by Debbie Flitcroft (Mrs Roy Hudd).