Later, he was a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 2 for nearly a decade and a half, including an on-air partnership with his third wife Ellen.

"[2] Born in Hackney, London, the son of laundry worker Elsie Elaine Ruth Jameson (whom, until the age of 8, he believed to be his elder sister) and an unidentified father,[3] Jameson was illegitimate and grew up in a private children's home alongside his mother, where conditions were poor and five children shared the same bug-ridden bed.

[4] The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History (2011) states that Jameson had "one Jewish parent"; whether this refers to his mother or the man he assumed was his father is unspecified.

He was appointed editor of the Daily Express the following year by its new proprietor, Victor Matthews, with whom he initially had a good rapport; the two men had a similar start in life.

[11] He was quoted in one newspaper as commenting that the new paper would be "tits, bums, QPR and roll your own fags", but while under oath several years later during his libel case, he insisted that this had been invented by the reporter.

By now Jameson had gained a reputation of being able to increase the circulations of tabloid newspapers,[9] after ending his employment by Matthews over differences which had emerged.

Rupert Murdoch, though, fired him in January 1984[12] after the publication of a story implying that Harold Holt, the Australian Prime Minister who disappeared from a beach in 1967, had been a communist spy.

This award against him affected his finances, and following the end of his time at the News of the World in the previous month,[12] he was forced to take up an offer from the BBC itself.

[17] He then hosted the Monday to Thursday late-night show between 22:30 and midnight along with his wife Ellen, which was called The Jamesons from January 1992 until April 1997.

[19] Following the end of his regular broadcasting career, Jameson wrote a weekly column in the Brighton Argus until October 2000,[2] and was latterly an after-dinner speaker.