Recruits to BBC Light Entertainment after the Second World war were welcomed with the assurance that although the pay was terrible they should take heart that their contribution to radio comedy brought joy to millions.

Now the BBC's top entertainers earn millions in return for sending listeners into paroxysms of rage.

Those defending “edgy comedy” have pointed out that the rather tame broadcasting of the 1950s would also fail to amuse today's audiences. Doubtless this is true. In 1950, the BBC Green Book established rules for what was off limits. “There is an absolute ban upon the following,” it announced, “jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men” and “immorality of any kind”.

Also forbiddden were “suggestive references to honeymoon couples, chambermaids, fig leaves, prostitution, ladies' underwear (eg, ‘winter draws on'), animal habits (eg, ‘rabbits') and ‘commercial travellers'”. Politics and religion were definitely not laughing matters.

Expletives such as “god, good god, my god, blast, hell, damn, bloody, gorblimey and ruddy” had to be deleted from scripts. More surprisingly, “the vulgar use of such words as ‘basket' must be avoided”.

Many of the guidelines comply with modern notions of political correctness. No offence was to be given to other races. Jewish jokes, yes; jokes about Jews, no. Even such lines as “enough to make a Maltese cross” were to be avoided. References to drinking were all right in moderation. But “remarks such as ‘one for the road' are inadmissible on road safety grounds”.

If a comedian wished to impersonate a real person, that person's permission was required. If he or she was dead, permission from the person's relatives was necessary.

The Green Book was born of bitter experience. In 1944, the BBC had recorded the great star of variety, Max Miller. Seemingly on a roll, Miller - a master of double entendre - told an unscripted joke about a mountain pass, a girl and a blocked passage. Oh dear. He was banned for five years.

The lengthy list of prohibitions unintentionally encouraged the great British tradition of artfully crafted innuendo. By the 1960s - with Julian and Sandy's camp Polari slang leaving listeners of Round the Horne in hysterics - this had reached a pitch that made a mockery of the

old rules.

Indeed, such rules were scarcely necessary. Even in the “permissive Sixties” it would not have occurred to any of the Round the Horne team to pick up a telephone and start taunting an elderly Bud Flanagan.

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