Legendary BBC radio presenter David Arscott has died at the age of 81.
The veteran broadcaster presented on Radio Brighton before it was renamed Radio Sussex. Arscott, who also wrote over 40 books about Sussex, was on the airwaves from the mid-seventies until 1991.
David reportedly died suddenly after playing a game of tennis and passed away on a bench in the grounds of Lewes priory on November 29. His wife Jill paid a sweet tribute to her husband, revealing how much he loved presenting on the radio.
In a statement, she wrote: "He liked people and rarely judged them. Although he loved his writing he always said that radio presenting was the best job he had ever had.
"Few things riled David, but a misplaced comma certainly did. David had long been the county's laureate, telling its story in his own words and in his warm voice in dozens of books, programmes and talks all over Sussex.
"He loved the records kept by Sussex vicars of centuries ago, laughing out loud at 'Buried Thomas Winfield, that old fornicator' and the baptism of the daughter of 'Elizabeth Rogers, a very noted strumpet of this parish'."
David, a grandfather of 10, started out as a newspaper journalist in London, Dorset and Caracas, Venezuela before moving into radio. He left the BBC in 1991 and married Jill the same year.
Jill also recalled a funny moment in David's radio career during a phone-in. She said: "The red light suddenly flashed, David gratefully opened the mic, asked the listener for her educational point and she said: 'I've lost my parrot!'.
"Such were the perils of having no back-up to separate the calls to the station's lost pet service from the current affairs phone-ins. In those days editing meant cutting tape with a razor blade and all too often hunting for the lost bit when it dropped into the wastepaper basket.
"Whether it was missing parrots or doing the commentary from the funeral of Ian Gow, the Eastbourne MP murdered by the IRA, David loved the job."
A well-known figure in the local community, David created a garden on the corner of Friars' Walk in the town centre, near the old Railway Inn where he lived. He lovingly referred to this spot as their 'forever home'.
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