SIR Harry Secombe was a natural clown and one of Britain's best-loved entertainers. He had a genius for slapstick and buffoonery and was a founder of one of Britain's most revered comedy shows, The Goon Show.

Whether he was Neddy Seagoon, Sir Cumference or just plain Harry Secombe, his falsetto giggles spilling through to an inevitable raspberry were unmistakable.

But he was also a singer with a classical tenor voice that could move people to tears, an actor, a writer and a tireless charity worker.

Sir Harry was held in great affection by his peers as well as fans, who included royalty and prime ministers such as Lord Harold Wilson and John Major.

In later years, however, he became best known for his Sunday night programme Highway, a ''God-slot'' show he began for Tyne Tees television in 1983. It was a series for which he had great affection, meeting people doing worthy things for the community, from nurses to politicians.

One of Wales' favourite sons, Harry was born in a Swansea council house on September 8, 1921. Life was spartan but happy and he never saw his parents fight. He had great respect for his father who would tell him: ''Always judge a man by the way he treats someone who is of no use to him.'' Harry was to follow that advice for the rest of his life.

The son of a travelling salesman and the middle one of three children, he grew up in the tough docks area of the city, showing great literary promise as a youth and harbouring ambitions to be a writer.

He was a small, puny lad who acted the fool at school to stop himself from being bullied. By impersonating the teachers, he ingratiated himself with the other, bigger boys.

In 1939, Harry volunteered for the Swansea Territorials and saw action in North Africa, Sicily and Italy as a lance bombardier. His clowning around continued throughout his Army days when he would imitate the sergeants. Then, one morning, his platoon was dug in with 7.2 howitzers as the Africa campaign reached its height. Suddenly, a gun came spinning by after it was fired, missing him by a few feet. A face appeared over the parapet. It was Spike Milligan who said: ''Has anyone seen a gun?'' ''What colour?'' Harry replied. It was the first time they met. Later they got together for a concert party.

When Harry was demobbed, he decided on a career in show business, becoming a graduate of the famous Windmill Theatre where he worked six comedy spots a day, six days a week, between the nudes. It was there that he met Spike Milligan again and two other struggling comics that were to help shape his life - Peter Sellars and Michael Bentine.

Also in 1946, he met his wife to be, Myra Atherton, the only daughter of a south Wales steel worker, at a dance on Mumbles Pier. He was always to be proud of the fact that there were no skeletons in his marital cupboard throughout his life. ''Marriage is a lottery and I picked a winning ticket,'' he would say. ''I've always been loyal and so has she.'' They were to have four children, Andrew, Katy, Jennifer and David.

Harry toured variety halls around the country as the second spot on the bill, an experience which he said sometimes engendered a desperate humour. Goon humour had already taken shape and, in 1949, BBC Radio ran the first Goon Show series, which was regarded as a completely new form of broadcasting humour.

It quickly took on a cult following and went on to run for 11 years, with Harry at the forefront. Lines like ''ying tong iddle I po'' were catch phrases in houses throughout Britain and devotees of the Goons, such as Prince Charles, remained loyal even after the programmes stopped running.

In the early days of his career, Harry's own natural tenor voice was given free rein but, in 1951, on the recommendation of a record company executive, he started attending voice training classes under Mario de Veroli. Soon he was coming to the public's attention as a singer. From 1956 to 1966, Harry appeared frequently at the London Palladium and from 1951, he became almost a regular feature of the Royal Command performances.

His marriage to Myra kept him level headed, however. ''When he came home full of himself after signing a contract for £1,000 a week at the London Palladium, she said: ''That's nice!'' Then sent him upstairs to see his eldest son Andrew who had measles.

In 1963, Harry achieved a professional ambition to appear in a musical play when he took the part of Mr Pickwick in Dickens's Pickwick Papers, which ran for two years in the West End, and toured the United States with a season on Broadway. That same year, he was awarded the CBE for his work on behalf of the Army Benevolent Fund. In 1972, there was a special performance of the Goon Show to mark the 50th anniversary of the BBC. It revived memories for old fans but found a new following and, in 1975, several of the shows were repeated and a televised version was also produced.

Meanwhile, Harry appeared in a number of films, of which his portrayal of Mr Bumble in Oliver! was the best known. And he did not completely cast out his writing ambitions, contributing regularly to Punch magazine. His first novel, Twice Brightly, was published in 1974 and it was the start of a number of books which included other novels and autobiographical works.

Though he had a natural talent for writing, it was his daughter Jennifer Stock, who was also his agent, who, he said, really encouraged him to write more.

Throughout his career, he was heavily involved in charity work for organisations such as the Army Benevolent Fund, the Stars Organisation for Spastics as well as helping appeals for spina bifida and hyrocephalus (water on the brain). In 1981, he was further honoured with a knighthood for his services to entertainment and charity.

Sir Harry was a programme consultant to Harlech Television, although he was not brought up as a Welsh speaker. Just a year before he started the Highway series he suffered a heart attack and collapsed during a tour of Australia. But, far from holding him back, it was the start of another important feature of his life.

He had been a short 19 stone but, after collapsing, he slimmed down to 14 stone. His diet not only became an essential part of his life but he also turned it into a best-selling book. Sir Harry and his wife were now spending even more time together in their 104-year-old manor house in Surrey. Then, early in 1999, the veteran comic was felled by a stroke which affected the left side of his body and badly impaired his speech. The famous manic giggle became slurred and he was robbed of his fine tenor voice. The stroke came at a time when he was due to undergo treatment for prostate cancer.