[4] After leaving school aged 15, Fowlds worked at a printer's firm as an apprentice and also, as his National Service, spent two years in the RAF as a wireless operator.

He appeared in various film roles, including Tamahine (1963), East of Sudan (1964), Hotel Paradiso (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969), Tower of Evil (1972) and Mistress Pamela (1974), prior to becoming familiar to British television child viewers as "Mr. Derek" in the popular British children's series The Basil Brush Show for four series, replacing Rodney Bewes as presenter.

Fowlds then played old and curmudgeonly Oscar Blaketon in the long-running Yorkshire Television police drama nostalgia series Heartbeat set in the sixties for its entire eighteen-year run beginning in 1992.

The character first appeared as the local police sergeant, then retired from the force and ran the post office before becoming a publican.

He died at Royal United Hospital in Bath on 17 January 2020 aged 82 from complications of heart failure and sepsis, which had followed pneumonia.