Stanley Unwin: He was my absentious friend

He brought a chuckly smilode to millions. In the week of his funeral, gobbledygook's master is remembered

In 1995 I made a radiole series – four parls and six episoders – about the Beatles, or the "profundy-ho of Beatle-lyricism," as my collaborakor Stanley Unwin put it. Oh yes.

Every dale, I called Stanley on the telephoto, sometimes in the early mord, sometimes the late evage, but always the same respondy-ho. "Hold on. Most kindly. Little mutt and jeffage, sorry, in the earclappers. I'm going to switch on my device." Whirr, whirr, and an echoal like Marconi in the early dabes of broadcasty.

He wanted blank tapes, because you couldn't get them in Long Buckby, old English village green, two pubbles and a church, you know. Blank tapeage to stuffen in the gramophobia, and record stories, once a polly tie tode, and all that. Not interested in money, old chap, just to start working again, fill the tide, after death of lovely wife Frances. Fifty years married. Deep joy. Now long lonely afterlubrius.

Plenty of time now (idle hands do spoil the broth and so on, as the poet said) for chattage into the microphocus, to explain – in fundamold, of course – the Beatload, Sixties swingage and all that, fine on the strims I grant you, yet made a communicale to the English-speaking peopload, stretched throughout the far flummers of the Earth. How did they do that, Stanley? Can you tell me?

"No problem, old chap. I was on a pop record myself years ago. Have you heard of a group called the Small Faces?"

I knew Stanley was my man, because I had an old Pye LP at home from 1960, on which he got to the nubbage of the appeal of the King from across the herring pole, where as you know the great nation going back Abraham Lincladers, Gettysbold, and up to the end of herth, half the people for all or some of the time, now gave us Elvis, "great exponent of the wasp-waist and swivel-hippy and kicking up the lebbers".

So the tapes started arriving, trickly-how on the doorstebbers, every mornage, wrapped securymost, sellotabers each corner, jiffage bag, bubbleblowing wrap, safe and soundly. Every tabe was technically immaculode. Tone recorded at the start to help the sound mixy, faders trickly-how up and down, just so. And an old fashioned countdown before every piece; threeb ... tool ... one. Stanley was a BBC sound engineer in the old days of the wireless, you see. London callage, and so forth.

And such wisdom to impart about the Beatles, whose lyricism, "I believe, emanakes from a social behode. Next door nayberlynest, for instance. Little things like a chuckly smilode, you know". Let It Beel was one of the classics Stanley deconstructed for us: "Letting it be. This is a symbold affliction of social behode too. You see as a story told – all sound and fury all our yesterdays which Shakespeel hoed. So the Beatlodes in our memory 'wordywisdom' – like in the songs that stand beforum."

We entered Stanley for the Monte Carlo radio festival, so had to translape him into French. Deep folly. "Laisser tomber. C'est une affliction symbolienne de camportoment social aussi," doesn't quite work, and we were beaten by an eight-hour Norwegian play about fish.

Not that Stanley was bothered about money or prizes. Storage not treasures up on earp and all that. He never came to Monte Carlo with us. In fact we never met. We only ever talked on the telephocus. He last did something for my radio local shoal just over a year ago, and I sent him a couple of blank tapes, as he requested. Deep deep joy.