WORCESTER Jerry is dead and that is the truth. You might have expected the World's Second Greatest Liar and master of the tall tale to have fooled us all one last time, but at the age of 90, he finally reached the end of life's story.

Really. Truly. Honestly. Sadly.

On Tuesday, October 2, the angels arrived to take him to another land, where every night is folk club night and straight-laced sceptics are banned.

Gerry Tysoe's funeral at the little church of St Anne's in his home village of Wyre Piddle, near Pershore, was full of friends and acquaintances who had spent many convivial hours in the company of a man who enjoyed some wonderful sunset years to his life.

His working career had been in industry. Indeed, he was the long serving chief of a major Worcester engineering company and then had no more connection with the folk club circuit than fly.

But 12 years ago his wife died and suddenly Gerry was alone. A peaceful retirement became rather too peaceful.

"I was feeling rather down," he told me when I interviewed him after he was acclaimed runner-up in the World's Greatest Liar Competition.

"So to pass the evenings I began going to a folk club my son Gus was running in Worcester.

"Everyone did a turn, but my attempts at singing were not very successful.

(Gerry had a voice that sounded like sandpaper on gravel, to put it kindly.)

"Even if I remembered the words, I forgot the tune!

"Then I saw a story in a paper about two French lorry drivers. It was so memorable I decided to tell it at the folk club instead of singing and it went down very well.

"That's how I began and it's grown from there."

Grow it did.

Gerry - he adopted the stage name of Worcester Jerry with a J to blur the connection with his business career - became a firm favourite in folk clubs and story-telling clubs throughout the land.

He cheerfully adopted the mantle of the Grand Old Storyteller.

"Gerry was a man respected and admired in the Three Counties, West Midlands and beyond," recalled Bill Pullen, one of his best friends.

"Indeed, the titles of Biggest Liar or Second Biggest Liar were bestowed upon him several times in various counties and at various folk festivals.

"Many is the time I have laughed at the tales of Sir Tain, Sir Prise, Sir Cumference and all those other knights at Arthur's Court that featured in 'Jerry's Tales'

"Gerry was a welcome visitor to sessions like Broad Campden and Pershore, festivals like Upton and Bromyard, not to mention his trips to clubs and festivals all over the Midlands, even into Cheshire and Cumbria on occasions.

"I, along with many others, will have a cassette and a book of the Round Table Tales to remind me of the affection and high regard we all had for him and the humour and delivery that came across, as yet another tall story proved to have a twist in it."

Gerry, who died following a fall, had a fund of about 100 stories - all of them either made up or only very loosely based on truth.

"I keep them all in my head, so they're never quite the same each time I tell them," he told me.

"I never write anything down, only the title and perhaps the names of the main characters, who are all fictitious. I think!"

What's certain now, is that Worcestershire has lost a real character.