1978. He was an avid collector of antiques, books and posters and amassed a collection of over 53,000 postcards. He produced several compilation books of them, including Ronnie Barker's Book of Bathing Beauties, A Pennyworth of Art, and Sauce. Barker rarely appeared in public, and when he did, it was almost always in character. He once said, "I've always known I haven't a personality of my own, I have to be someone else to be happy. That's why I became an actor, I suppose." Barker was a heavy smoker until 1972, when he gave up the habit after having a pre-cancerous growth removed from his throat; he took to drinking wine and using placebo cigarettes to maintain his concentration and help him sleep. He underwent a heart bypass in 1996 and survived a pulmonary embolism the following year. Death Barker opted not to have heart valve replacement surgery, and his health rapidly declined after the recording of The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook. He died of heart failure at the Katherine House hospice in Adderbury, Oxfordshire, on 3 October 2005, aged 76, with his wife by his side. News of his death made top billing on television news bulletins. Barker's body was cremated at a private humanist funeral at Banbury Crematorium, which was attended only by family and close friends. A public memorial service for Barker was held on 3 March 2006 at Westminster Abbey, with some 2,000 people in attendance. Ronnie Corbett, Richard Briers, Josephine Tewson, Michael Grade, and Peter Kay all read at the service, while others in attendance included David Jason, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Leslie Phillips, Lenny Henry, Dawn French, June Whitfield and David Frost. A recording of Barker's rhyming slang sermon from The Two Ronnies was played, and while the cross was in procession in the aisle of the abbey, it was accompanied by four candles instead of the usual two, in reference to the Four Candles sketch. Barker was the third comedy professional to be given a memorial at Westminster Abbey, after Joyce Grenfell and Les Dawson. Legacy Following his death, the Writer of the Year Award at the British Comedy Awards was renamed in his honour. In 2005, he was voted as the 16th greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders, in a poll to find The Comedians' Comedian. The BBC described him as "one of the leading figures of British