Veteran jazz musician, radio host and Barnet resident Humphrey Lyttelton died on Friday, aged 86. Rebecca Lowe looks back at the life of a man who captivated the nation with his warmth, wit and wonderful jazz refrains

It was once said an ancestor of Humphrey Lyttelton had been hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot. The story has never been proved, but it is not hard to believe - an explosive career path seems embedded in the Lyttelton genes.

Known by most for his chairmanship of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Lyttelton's true passion was jazz. As a teenager in the Thirties, he propelled himself into the British jazz scene and remained there for 70 years, leaving an indelible mark on all who followed him.

Sixty-nine-year-old Brian Peerless met Lyttelton on the local jazz circuit when he lived around the corner from him in Barnet Road, Arkley, between 1968 and 1975.

He said: "The great thing about him was that he was a man of principle. He did what he felt was the right way of doing things, musically and politically, and stuck with it.

"To me he was a hero, a giant. A true giant of British jazz."

Mr Peerless believes Lyttelton's renowned deadpan wit, which catapulted him to the chairmanship of the Radio 4 panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue in 1972, stemmed from his talent as a jazz artist.

"It all came back to music. It's all about timing and a lot of that comes from jazz, because it's not just what you play, but what you don't play. He was brilliant at that."

Lyttelton - known as "Humph" to his friends - was as generous with his time as he was with his talents. Despite being an octogenarian with increasing commitments to his band and Radio 4, he was never too busy to lend his support to projects. He was a patron of the Mill Hill Music Festival and Proms at St Jude's, the Hampstead Garden Suburb music festival.

Susie Gregson, managing director of Proms at St Jude's, said she would miss Lyttelton's "great musicianship and humour".

She said: "His performance at Proms last year, when the suburb was celebrating its centenary, was to a packed house who enjoyedsuperb traditionaljazz interspersed by his ever-sharp dialogue and wit."

During his career, he worked as a jazz writer, radio broadcaster, calligraphy expert, newspaper cartoonist and magazine restaurant critic.

But his true love was always jazz. Having formed his own band in 1948, Lyttelton went on to tour with the likes of Earl Hines, Rex Stewart and Thelonious Monk.

"The first time I really grasped the full extent of my own notoriety," he wrote in the Forties, "was when I heard that my cousin Charles, 10th Viscount Cobham, had received an under-the-counter portion of steak in a Birmingham restaurant on the strength of being Humphrey Lyttelton's first cousin."

Lyttelton was admitted to Barnet Hospital on April 16 to have surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. He died peacefully with his family and friends around him on April 25.

He is survived by a daughter from his first marriage to Patricia Braithwaite and two sons and a daughter from his second marriage to Jill Richardson, who died in 2006.