A one-hit wonder who spent years in obscurity has been ranked ahead of The Beatles in a jubilee poll to find the nation's favourite song of the past 50 years.

Multiple sclerosis sufferer Clifford T Ward, who died in December, aged 57, made it to number four in BBC Radio 2's poll for Home Thoughts From Abroad, which failed to even chart as a single.

His high profile in the poll will have been helped by Terry Wogan, who has long been a big fan of Ward and has often played his songs on the Breakfast Show.

The list was fittingly topped by Queen for their perennial favourite Bohemian Rhapsody.

The operatic chart-topper was way ahead of all rivals in the poll which drew more than 14,000 votes.

Second place went to Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade Of Pale in a top 10 which features not one song from the past quarter century.

Robbie Williams's Angels (25) is the only song to appear in the top 50 which was released within the past decade.

The top 10 are:

1 Queen - Bohemian

Rhapsody

2 Procol Harum - A Whiter

Shade Of Pale

3 John Lennon - Imagine

4 Clifford T Ward - Home

Thoughts From Abroad

5 Led Zeppelin - Stairway

To Heaven

6 Beatles - Yesterday

7 Beatles - Hey Jude

8 Cliff Richard - We Don't

Talk Any More

9 Dusty Springfield - You

Don't Have To Say You Love

Me

10 The Hollies - He Ain't

Heavy, He's My Brother.