ED Stewart – universally known as ‘Stewpot’ – was a broadcaster whose audiences in the 1970s were on a scale almost unimaginable today.

On Fridays, he was the presenter of TV’s Crackerjack, playing straight man to the antics of comedians Don Maclean and Peter Glaze.

In pictures: Ed Stewart, farewell to the kindest star >>>

On weekend mornings, he was the host of Junior Choice on Radio 1, entertaining millions with novelty records such as Terry Scott’s My Brother or Grandad by Clive Dunn.

Young people also knew him as a columnist in Look-In magazine – while on Thursday nights, he was a frequent host of Top of the Pops.

But Stewart, who died in hospital in Bournemouth last Saturday, aged 74, also gave his time freely to good causes.

In recent years, he lived in Westbourne, then New Milton, and supported a host of charities.

“He was one of the kindest men you could have met,” says Frances Cornelius, Wessex chair for Variety, the Children’s Charity, who became a close friend.

“He never said no to anybody if he didn’t have to.”

Bournemouth Echo:

Ed Stewart was born in Exmouth, Devon, to Ray and Peggy Mainwaring, and was brought up in Wimbledon. He talked his way into a job as a radio announcer in Hong Kong after going there as the double bass player in a jazz trio for a gig that was cancelled before he arrived.

Returning to Britain in 1965, he became a disc jockey for the pirate station Radio London, alongside the likes of Bournemouth-raised Tony Blackburn, John Peel, Kenny Everett and Dave Cash, who gave him his nickname.

He joined Radio 1 after its launch in 1967 and became host of Junior Choice in 1968, remaining in post throughout the 1970s.

Stewart recorded a charity single, I Like My Toys, with the Save the Children Fund Choir in 1968, and his charity work continued in Dorset.

In November 1971, he opened the Golden Link Club’s bazaar at the Royal British Legion in Wimborne. In Swanage, where his parents then lived, his charity work included dropping in on a children’s party at the 18/8 Club in January 1972 and joining the Swanage Lifeboat centenary fete at the King George V playing fields in 1975.

Bournemouth Echo:

Also in 1975, he was at Poole Quay to join youngsters from Victoria School for the relaunch of the world’s first sailing boat for young people with disabilities.

He was in panto in Bournemouth in 1978-79 and later at Wimborne’s Tivoli, while in 1979, he hosted 100 Vietnamese refugees from Sopley Camp when they visited Tucktonia at Christchurch.

And alongside these commitments, he was a stalwart volunteer for the showbiz charity Variety.

After leaving Radio 1’s Junior Choice, Stewart went on to present a Radio 2 show, but his contract there was not renewed in 1983.

He went to an independent station, Mercury, in Sussex, but said it was not the same as broadcasting nationally. “I didn’t like the idea of being a faded star condemned to ‘where are they now?’ features in newspapers,” he admitted in 1992.

After leaving Mercury, he was back for a second stint at Radio 2.

Stewart became increasingly busy with local events in recent times, sometimes combining his charity fundraising with his love of golf at charity tournaments. Frances Cornelius remembers how he refused any payment and she had to force him to take petrol money.

In 2005, he signed his book, Out of the Stewpot, at Westbourne bookshop, and was impressed when a fan played him a tape recording of him wishing her son a happy birthday 27 years previously.

In 2006, he gave the Echo his views on the axing of Top of the Pops. “I think it’s sad. Like everything these things run their course and with the prevalence of the internet it had to happen,” he said.

“When Top of the Pops started with the BBC it was wonderful but time has overtaken it.”

In 2007, he presented Bournemouth’s Good Citizen Awards, and the following year he presented the first of six Magic of Mantovani concerts, at Poole’s Lighthouse.

Stewart had a vast knowledge of Mantovani, whose cascading strings were popular when he was a teenager. He had been due to present another concert for Poole-based Paul Barrett, founder of the Magic of Mantovani Orchestra, in April this year.

Junior Choice was brought back as a Christmas treat by Radio 2 in recent years, and Stewpot’s last broadcast was on Christmas Day, hosting the show for which millions will always remember him.