Cooke wanted ashes in Central Park

The celebrated broadcaster Alistair Cooke asked for his ashes to be scattered in New York’s Central Park, it emerged today.

From his home Cooke overlooked the park, a calm in the metropolis, when he wrote Letter from America, radio’s longest-running speech programme.

The request was made in a will filed in a Manhattan court just 11-days before the broadcaster’s death.

Cooke also requested that his loved ones did not hold a funeral service.

“I should like my friends to stay home or join a neighbour, enjoy a drink and think pleasant thoughts of me,” according to the will, quoted in the New York Daily News.

The 11-page will, filed in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court, put Cooke’s estate at between £1.1m (€1.6m) and £1.7m (€2.5m).

Most was left to his widow, Jane, while his grandchildren received nearly £600 (€896.20) each.

Cooke left £8,500 (€12,700) and an 18th-century figurine of a Chinese banker, purchased from the estate of William Randolph Hearst, to his long-time secretary, Patricia Yasek.

Cooke’s lawyer, David Grossberg, was unable to say whether the ashes had yet been scattered.

“He didn’t want to make a fuss. He was a very simple person,” Mr Grossberg told the newspaper.

British-born Cooke died in his New York apartment last month, aged 95, before dispatching his final Letter from America.

He had broadcast the weekly BBC commentary on American culture since 1946.