THE FORMER Blackpool schoolboy who went on to host the world's longest running speech radio programme has died at the age of 95.

Prime Minister, Tony Blair, led the tributes to Alistair Cooke, who passed away at his New York home just four weeks after his last Letter from America.

Mr Cooke was born in Salford but his family moved to Blackpool to run a boarding house when he was just eight years old. He excelled at Blackpool Grammar School and studied at Cambridge University, before launching his long journalistic career, which made his name on both sides of the Atlantic.