His friends were saying over the weekend that Studs Terkel would have chuckled at the thought of dying on Halloween, which America’s pre-eminent oral historian and raconteur did at home in his beloved adopted Chicago last Friday at the age of 96. But they added that he would have been desperately disappointed not to have lived in the hope of seeing Barack Obama rise to the presidency of the US.

He died from complications from a fall in his house two weeks ago. At his bedside was a copy of his final book, PS: Final Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening, to be released this month.