PETER Kent, the man behind the raspberries, clattering footsteps, gunshots, bells and whistles of the Goon Show, died on June 13, aged 91.

The studio manager for the BBC Home Service variety section in the 1950s, Mr Kent worked alongside Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine for many years.

The cast - Milligan in particular - were very demanding about the wacky sound effects which peppered their scripts, and whether replicating Bluebottle's demise, Major Bloodnok's explosive digestive system or sailing the Channel on Napoleon's piano, they had to be perfect.

As Mr Kent recalled more than three decades later: "It might have seemed that it was just fooling about but they worked hard to get it just right.

"Timing was crucial to make it really funny."

He was close with the team and they would go for drinks together after the show was wrapped up for the week.

Mr Kent was born in Cologne in December 1923, where his father, a British Army soldier, was based. He was educated in part in Egypt, and entered the working world in England as a trainee instrument maker with a talent for electronics.

His job included stripping down field telephones, and later in a laboratory he helped to make rack mounted radio equipment.

While working in a radio repair shop he was head-hunted to train as a BBC engineer at a new transmitting station in Exeter, later joining BBC Bristol as a maintenance engineer.

During the Second World War he signed up for the Army and was dispatched to the Middle East, where he became admin officer with Forces Broadcasting in Jerusalem.

He attained the rank of captain later in the war, and was at one point ordered to set up a broadcasting station in Tripoli in just two weeks.

The pressures of wartime broadcasting could only have helped in the anarchic environment of a Goon Show recording, and after demobilisation he rejoined the BBC Variety Department.

He went out to Nigeria in 1956 with the BBC outside broadcasting unit to cover the Queen's tour, and later worked on coverage for the Independence celebrations, for which he received a commemorative medal from the Governor of the Northern Region.

He was dismayed to be made redundant by the BBC on his return to the UK at the age of 38.

Mr Kent sold encyclopaedias door to door for a time, but later found success with a printing machine which produced calling cards.

Eventually, in 1996, he retired to Bournemouth with his wife Joyce, and they ran a hotel in Burnaby Road. His wife died on Christmas Eve, 2013.

He was a member of the Milton Musical Society, the Bournemouth Operatic Society and Christchurch Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and was on stage until his late 80s.

A funeral service was held yesterday at the Hinton Park Woodland Burial Ground.