Alan Whicker Photo: IC

Veteran British broadcaster and journalist Alan Whicker, whose career spanned five decades and whose clipped delivery style was parodied by Monty Python, died on Friday at the age of 87.

Whicker was best known for the award-winning Whicker's World globe-trotting documentary series which ran on the publicly funded BBC and ITV networks between 1959 and 1988.

Whicker had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia and died on Jersey in the Channel Islands, his home since the 1970s.

In 2005 he received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire from the queen for services to broadcasting.