Dudley Savage, MBE, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the BBC on 25 November, 2008, was a musician and radio host best known for his long-running hospital request show.

As Prescribed was broadcast on BBC Radio from the ABC's Royal Cinema in Plymouth, where Mr Savage began his career as a professional organist. He presented and played for As Prescribed, a programme of requested organ music for those ill in hospital or at home which ran from 1948 to 1979.

Such was the popularity of the show that when the BBC dropped it from its schedules in 1968, a petition of 43,000 signatures resulted in it returning to the airwaves.

Writer and fellow organist Jonathan Mann was among the first to pay tribute to Mr Savage. He said: "The thing that was remarkable was his musicianship. He had an incredibly distinctive style with a particular gift for harmony. He was a first-rate organist and arranger, as cinema organists have to arrange things in their head.

"He not only presented the show for an hour every week, but also played, which I don't think anyone else ever did. He was also incredibly modest. He never made anything of his playing and never regarded himself as a celebrity."

The Cinema Organ Society said: "Dudley was one of the last surviving organists from the great days when cinema organs were to be heard constantly on the wireless."

Mr Savage was born in Gulval, near Penzance in Cornwall. His mother was the organist at the church there and taught him the piano before he too took up the organ.

He became the resident organist at the Royal Cinema in 1938. During the Second World War he interrupted his playing at the Royal to serve with the army in India.

He died at a nursing home near Liskeard. His wife, Doreen, died in 2003.