“THE most important thing in the world,” said Ken Dodd, getting serious for a moment, “is that every diddy kid should be able to jump and sing, and dance and play.

They cannot do this if they catch polio. Can I appeal to all mums to bring their kids along to be immunise?” Armed with his tickling-stick, Dodd had arrived at the Bridgeton Child Welfare Clinic and Day Nursery to give his support to Glasgow Corporation’s anti-polio immunisation campaign, and handed out vaccine-impregnated sugar lumps.

Dodd - who died last month, aged 90 - was in Glasgow for a week-long run in the Alhambra Theatre’s Startime show (he would be followed in the next two weeks first by Frankie Vaughan then Cilla Black). On the morning of his first show, beating a drum, waving his tickling-stick and eating chips, he stopped the traffic by marching along Wellington Street, several Glasgow kids as his Diddymen behind him. Young women in mini-skirts, the Evening Times observed, looked a little apprehensive as he asked them, “Would you like to be tittilariously tickled, love?”