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During the Pope’s visit to Glasgow in 2010, Snafu appeared at one end of the ward, as if in a vision, a mitre fashioned from a pillowcase stuffed with cardboard upon his head, his body draped in a white blanket, a giant crucifix round his neck. He carried an aluminium brush handle as a staff and glided regally up the ward in his chair handing out fragments of sliced white bread to the occupant of every bed. In Glasgow, a city riven by religious divide, the comedy was especially edgy, of course, because he was a Protestant; a Rangers football team supporter.

‘Bless you my child,’ he said at every bedside.

And to the women and the female nurses, his eyes dancing sardonically: ‘Kiss my ring.’

Several years have passed, but I can still remember the sustained gale of laughter following him up the corridor that day. People laughed and then kept on laughing and then laughed some more. You simply don’t hear that in hospital. He provoked a similar outbreak of mirth in the gym when, bored and restless as he often was, he wheeled around asking all the women present how much they would charge to lap-dance for him.