Denis Mostyn Norden:
(born Denis Moss Cohen; 6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018). English comedy writer and television presenter.
After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the BBC Radio comedy programme Take It from Here with Frank Muir. Muir and Norden remained associated for more than 50 years, appearing regularly together on the radio panel programmes My Word! and My Music after they stopped collaborating on scripts. He also wrote scripts for Hollywood films. He presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz Looks Familiar and blooper shows It’ll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File.
It’s a funny kind of month, October. For the really keen cricket fan, it’s when you discover that your wife left in May.
The joke is about the obsessive English cricket supporter:
– The traditional English cricket season begins around ‘May’ and ends in ‘September’.
– A truly devoted fan has supposedly spent the whole summer absorbed in cricket.
– Only when the season is over in ‘October’ does he return to ordinary life—and notice that his wife left five months earlier.
The humour comes from comic exaggeration, together with the stereotype of the absent-minded, cricket-obsessed husband.
✍️ Author and origin:
The usual wording is:
> “It’s a funny kind of month, October. For the really keen cricket fan, it’s when you discover that your wife left you in May.”
It is ‘widely attributed to Denis Norden’ (1922–2018),
the British comedy writer, broadcaster and presenter. However, ‘most quotation collections reproduce it without identifying a specific book, article or broadcast in which it first appeared’. Thus, the safest scholarly description is:
> ‘Attributed to Denis Norden; precise original source and date uncertain.’
Variants omit the second “you”—“your wife left in May”—but the sense remains the same.
