Alan Coren, who died on 19 October, 2007, aged 69, was one of the best-loved personalities on radio and television.

A regular panellist on Radio 4’s The News Quiz and BBC2’s Call My Bluff, his insightful and derisive style of comedy first came to the public eye when he edited Punch magazine in the 1970s and ’80s.

He also wrote regular newspaper and magazine columns, books and children’s fiction.

He was born in London on 27 June, 1938. Despite a humble background – his father was a plumber - he attended Oxford, Yale and Berkeley. He had been planning a career as an academic studying American Literature until he discovered a gift for satirical writing.

He joined Punch as an assistant editor in 1963 and became editor in 1978, holding the position for nine years. He was then hired by the BBC’s The Listener magazine to give the intellectual weekly a more humourous tone.

During this time he had also worked as a newspaper columnist and TV critic. "Television is more interesting than people," he once said. "If it were not we should have people standing in the corner of our room."

Though extremely well-read and witty, his humour had a kindness that audiences found endearing. As well as political satire, he poked fun at society’s foibles. Privately he was known for his traditional, conservative views on marriage and decorum, though he also strived to ensure his offices were full of laughter.

He was also extremely self-deprecating, claiming to edit his own Wikipedia entry every morning to make himself appear younger, and making regular jokes about his baldness and weight.

Collections of his comic writing were published regularly and he also penned the Arthur books, a series of imaginative children’s fiction. However, his ambitions to write serious fiction were thwarted by the demands of publishers who insisted that his writing be comedic.

Mark Damazer, controller of Radio 4, said: "Alan was the heartbeat of The News Quiz - the man around whom so much turned for nearly 30 years. It was not only that he was consistently brilliantly funny, but above and beyond that, his humour burst with humanity and warmth."

In his December 2006 column for The Times he revealed he had survived a rare flesh-eating disease after a risky operation in France.

The BBC announced that he had died from cancer on 19 October, 2007. He made his final appearance on The News Quiz two weeks earlier.

He had been married to Dr Anne Kasriel since 1963 and had two children, restaurant critic Giles and author and columnist Victoria.