THE legendary comic who left Bournemouth to become the most famous son of East Cheam is the subject of a day of celebrations early next month.

It is 50 years since Tony Hancock took to the air in his own BBC radio series, Hancock's Half Hour.

It was followed by more than 100 radio shows and 76 TV episodes, including such classics as Sunday Afternoon at Home, The Sleepless Night, The Radio Ham, Twelve Angry Men and The Blood Donor.

But Hancock's private life was dogged by unhappiness, and in 1968 he took his own life, aged 44, in Australia.

Born in Birmingham in 1924, Hancock moved to Bournemouth with his parents at the age of three and he lived in the town for 15 years until he joined the RAF.

His parents, Jack and Lil, ran the Durlston Court Hotel in Gervis Road from 1932-42. The young Anthony was sent to board at Durlston Court School, Swanage, from 1936. He learned typing and shorthand at Bournemouth Municipal College at the Lansdowne and later applied to be a newspaper reporter in Birmingham.

Hancock spent much of his childhood watching the entertainers at the Pavilion Theatre. He made his stage debut in the hall of the Church of the Sacred Heart on Richmond Hill in 1940, billed as "Anthony Hancock - The Confidential Comic". But his material was too strong for the audience and the priest asked him to leave.

From then on, he followed the advice of his mentor George Fairweather and never told another blue joke. George, a hairdresser on Westover Road from the 1940s until 1985, taught Hancock some of his most famous turns.

During the war, Hancock was billeted to the Hotel Metropole in Holdenhurst Road while attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force photographic interpretation unit.

Even when fame had taken him to London, the comic was a regular visitor to Bournemouth to see his mother Lil.

He also returned as an entertainer to top the bill at the Winter Gardens for the last week of the 1966 summer season. He tried out a host of new material for a forthcoming London show - but then dropped it in favour of older jokes.

Today, Hancock's links with the town are commemorated by a blue plaque at the Durlston Court Hotel. The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society holds its reunions there, where guests have included comic Paul Merton and Hancock's chief writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Hancock's Whole Evening is on Radio 2 on Tuesday, November 2, 7-10pm. Hancock's Helpers - profiling the likes of Sid James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques - is on Radio 4 the same day, 11.30am.

Laughter lines

A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful! - The Blood Donor

I've got friends all over the world - none in this country but all over the world - The Radio Ham

Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? - Twelve Angry Men

Christmas is going to be like any other day in this house... dead miserable - Hancock's Happy Christmas

Exit line

Things seemed to go wrong too many times - Suicide note, Australia, 1968