Bernard Manning was born in 1930 of Russian Jewish and Irish descent. He served in the Second World War. At one stage, just after the war, he was stationed at Spandau Prison Berlin, where he guarded the likes of Rudolph Hess.

His show business career began in the 1950s as a singer, before gradually introducing comedy in to his act. He first came to a wider public in the 1970s in TV programmes such as The Comedians and The Wheel Tappers and Shunters Social Club. Pushing the boundaries of comedy beyond the norm, his humour was loved and disliked in equal measure. He swore and used adult language, which, be warned, appears on these recordings!

It’s fair to say that his humour is considered very un-pc nowadays, but he always maintained that he was never targeting anyone in particular and his subject matter was scattered to anyone and everyone.

He started and appeared for many years at his own club, The Embassy in Manchester, where some of this material was recorded. He died in 2007.