00:00A proposal has been made to honour Sir Ken Dodd in Naughty Ash,
00:04the Liverpool neighbourhood where the comedian lived all his life.
00:08His friend, comedian John Martin, wants a statue or signs welcoming visitors to the area.
00:14I'm just trying to get something recognised here in Ken Doddland, in Naughty Ash.
00:20I think Sir Ken Dodd, he called himself the Squire of Naughty Ash.
00:25Dodd, he's immortalised it, hasn't he?
00:29And I mean, it can only add, it can only add to the mystique of up there,
00:34you know, making a place, I don't know what you want to call it or whatever.
00:38And you know, people even talk about the jam-butty mines and stuff like that,
00:42all in Dodd's imagination.
00:44Sir Ken lived on Thomas Lane his entire life and made Naughty Ash part of his comedy,
00:49including stories about the Diddy Men and their jam-butty mines.
00:53Martin says next year could be the opportunity to recognise his legacy.
00:58Ken would have been 100 years old next year, a wonderful centenary,
01:03and a great time to open a tribute, a new tribute to the greatest,
01:08a man who was voted the greatest Liverpudlian in the poll,
01:12only a few years before he passed away.
01:15Let's have something special here in Naughty Ash, a place he put on the map.
01:19Sir Ken died aged 90 in 2018.
01:23Councillor Harry Doyle, who represents Naughty Ash and Dovecott,
01:27has written to a housing developer asking for several roads on a new estate
01:31to be named after the performer.
01:33I'd love to have the road where he lived, Thomas Lane, all his life lived there.
01:37I'd love to have that renamed as Sir Ken Dodd Road or Sir Ken Dodd Lane,
01:42but I understand that's costly and a big, you know, big, huge undertaking
01:47for the council to ever consider.
01:49But there's other things as well.
01:51Up behind me, just behind that Thomas Lane sign, there's a piece of land.
01:55What a great place.
01:57I'm using this one of Ken Dodd's tickling sticks.
01:59I think it'd be wonderful to have a statue of the Squire of Naughty Ash
02:05right there where he lived.
02:07Martin, who wrote material for the late comedian for more than 30 years,
02:11described him as a comedy genius.
02:13I started an online position.
02:15I'm not brilliant with computers, but I just did it for my mate Sir Ken Dodd.
02:20I knew Dodd he 30, 40 years.
02:22I wrote jokes for Ken Dodd.
02:24And when he sadly passed away, I was asked on many news channels,
02:28what was it like to write jokes for Sir Ken Dodd?
02:31And I said, it was such an honour,
02:34an honour that I could only compare to mixing the paints for Van Gogh.
02:39He was a one-off kid, you know.
02:41It's like being champion of the world, a heavyweight boxer.
02:43You know, they get a chance to prove how good they are
02:45by fighting their next opponents all the time, don't they?
02:49Until they get beat.
02:50But no one could beat Dodd.
02:52Dodd was a one-off, even though he did used to take the Mickey out to me.
02:55And I bet you liked him even more for that.
02:57I loved him.
