Daughter pens Murray's biography

Just Daft will cover the professional disappointments which meant the pioneering comic did not receive the recognition beyond Scotland that many thought he deserved.

And it reveals some of Murray’s personal problems, including his battle with the skin condition psoriasis, and his paranoia about revealing his true age – even refusing to show his his passport to gun-toting guards in Tunisia.

Author Annabelle Meredith said: ‘We wanted to make it a happy book – but that’s not to say there isn’t some sadness in it.’

He teamed up with family friend Robbie Grigor to collate the previously unseen material. Murray, who died in 1985 at the age of 65, was a forerunner of modern stand-up, with the likes of Billy Connolly and Eddie Izzard citing him as an influence.

Meredith told the Sunday Times Scotland: ‘There’s so much material that people have never heard before. He wrote everything down in his own backhand scribble on wee pieces of paper, the backs of envelopes, on napkins. He kept all of them and they have been kept in the family, we have got hundreds of them.’

Some of the one-liners unearthed include: ‘Colour television, whatever next? I won’t believe it till I see it in black and white’ and ‘Sergeant, get those screaming women into my tent this minute/But they’re not screaming, sir/They’re not in my tent yet.’

Just Daft will be published by Birlinn in October. Click here to preorder it.

Here’s Murray performing just before his death:

Published: 25 May 2008