Prime minister David Cameron and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn led tributes in Britain to Terry Wogan, reflecting on the extraordinary position the broadcaster occupied in the country's national life.
As the whimsical presenter of BBC Radio 2's Breakfast Show, a wry commentator on the Eurovision Song Contest, and anchor of the Children in Need TV fundraiser, he earned the status of "national treasure" in his adopted country.
“Britain has lost a huge talent – someone millions came to feel was their own special friend. I grew up listening to him on the radio and watching him on TV. His charm and wit always made me smile,” Mr Cameron said.
Mr Corbyn said Wogan, a dual citizen of Ireland and the UK who was knighted in 2005, would be missed by millions, while Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron described the broadcaster as "a national institution".
Fellow broadcasters praised Wogan's easy, apparently effortless style and his capacity to connect with listeners. BBC announcer Alan Dedicoat, who worked with him for 15 years, said his Irishness gave him a perspective on Britain that proved invaluable.
“There will be no one like him again because he was so cheeky, so naughty. I spent 15 years on that breakfast show with him and I regret not one single day,” he said.
“It was a laugh from the minute he arrived to the minute he left. Rehearsal – he knew the meaning of the word, knew the concept, never actually applied it. What you saw, what you heard, was exactly what you got. He was the cheeky Irishman, always very perky. But he was able to see us slightly differently and see our weaknesses and see our strengths.”
Esther Rantzen, who worked with Wogan on the first Children in Need telethon in 1980, said his genial public persona was an accurate reflection of the warmth of the private person. She said: "I just loved his company and the viewers and listeners loved his company. And he had that extraordinary warmth and charm. He was funny, witty – a really skilled interviewer, which looked so effortless but was not."
‘Effortless’
Some of the warmest tributes came from Irish broadcasters in Britain, led by
Graham Norton
, who succeeded Wogan as Eurovision commentator. “He made it seem effortless and for a young boy in Ireland he made it seem possible,” he wrote.
Comedian Dara Ó Briain highlighted Wogan’s role as the most high-profile Irishman in Britain during the bloodiest years of the IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain.
“Hard to quantify what he achieved, not just in broadcasting, but for the Irish in Britain,” he wrote. “Hard to separate what he achieved and the accent he did it in, from the times in which he did it. And opened to the door to all who followed.”
