Neil Hodgson Shand (3 March 1934 – 14 April 2018) was an English television comedy writer.
Virtually blind in one eye, his eyesight was saved by an operation at 14 on the day the National Health Service was founded (5 July 1948).
[3] Briefly working for the nationals while still having the day job in Luton, he managed to gain a regular job at the Daily Sketch after finding details of the 21st birthday party of a son of the Aga Khan at the Savoy Hotel.
[4] Shortly after being sacked from the Mail for being drunk once too often, he ran into the documentary maker Michael Ingrams, who eventually introduced him to Bernard Braden, for whom Shand first began to write humorous material.
[2] His work with impressionist Mike Yarwood began around the same time with the sketch show Three of a Kind (1967).