I grew up on Benny Hill. Not literally, of course, but I was a huge fan of the senator of smut after being introduced to his caddishness by my grandfather. I was also a follower of his sidekick, ‘little’ Jackie Wright. It was in the days when visual, cleverly constructed humour ruled the comedy roost. No need for long, drawn out dialogue and the painstaking construction of a joke, when the same end result could be achieved by a cheeky look, a gurn or by slapping poor, bald, Jackie’s head rapidly.

Thankfully I had a full barnet in those days, but do recall some older, thinning thatched teenagers being subjected to joshing by means of a good firm series of slaps on the bonce. This went on daily for months but peaked after each new Benny Hill show. Besides that, the programme, far from encouraging gentlemen to suddenly turn into crazed sex pests with a penchant for chasing scantily clad around the local garden centre whilst screaming ‘phwooaahhh!’, laughed at the absurdity of such actions, despite the cultural reformers never really getting the joke.

‘Smut’ is a word that is often maligned. I remember when I would come out with a vaguely smutty remark Father would boom ‘I don’t do smut!’ yet he would sit there guffawing at Benny on a Friday night. Being of a seaside upbringing, I was also surrounded by postcards of an ‘end of the pier’ ‘nature. I often collected these and would laugh at the pictures and the never ending mirth that could be garnered from double entendres such as ‘big-un’, ‘sausage’ and ‘portion’. As stand-alone words they do not sail, but when part of a ‘saucy’ joke that infers a bit of ‘how’s yer father?’, they could be highly amusing.

Now we satisfy ourselves with photo postcards, if at all, of the local historic building, a castle or a notable figure, but I ask what is wrong with a bit of tongue in cheek smut?

Personally I would rather get a bare chested jet wash with a fireman’s hose than watch an episode of Citizen Khan, Mrs Brown Boys or any other safe, masquerading as ground breaking and edgy, comedy. Yes, the Brown show uses the F word, in a manner of speaking, but it wasn’t funny the first time, let along the 500th. It is a comedy one trick pony that should now trot off to the nearest knacker’s yard.

The only purveyor of smut we currently have on TV is Jimmy Carr. Yet, in true British fashion we attempted to crucify him via trial by media for having an ethical ‘misjudgement’ whilst having the savvy to hire a hot shot accountant and hide money, legally, off shore. Smut is a gaping hole in the market, left many years ago by the emperor of the entendre, Julian Clary, who finds himself still in the wilderness after a highly amusing on stage comment featuring Norman Lamont and a fist. The snowflake generation has really gotten hold of the public consciousness and we continue to be mortally offended by any utterance, jovial of not, that may upset our fragile dispositions. It’s as if Mary Whitehouse has regenerated and lives on in the souls of the populous. As Pink Floyd pointed out in 1977’s Pigs, "Whitehouse... Ha, ha, charade you are, you’re trying to keep our feelings off the street". If Floyd were one thing it was insightful, proving that maybe for them, the drugs did work.

We need to stop being so uptight whilst demanding the terrestrial channels re-show the genius of Hill and Clary (ably assisted by Fanny). I also trust we will one day bear witness to the resurgence of the saucy postcard in faraway fields such as Exeter or St Ives. We need to challenge the censors of smut and learn to take things in the manner in which they were intended. As the great man himself once said: "If my sketches teach anything, it is that, for the male, sex is a snare and a delusion. What's so corrupting about that?"

As for me, I am going to take a visit to Amazon later and buy the Benny Hill definitive works as I commence on a one man phwoar! on those whose will to censor us is greater than their sense of fun.