His mother was a piano teacher and his father a tenor-voiced butcher, both enthusiastic amateur performers.

It was there he entered a talent contest, his comic miming to two songs securing him second place.

[8] Returning to the UK in 1951, he found his first job, a summer season with the Vincent Tildsley’s Mastersingers at Blackpool’s Opera House, after responding to an advert in The Stage.

He devised and hosted a children’s quiz Around the World in 48 Hours for Westward Television in 1976.

He voiced the narrator, male characters and all the Mr. Men in the 1995–1997 series Mr. Men and Little Miss save for the 1998 special The Christmas Letter, where the roles of the narrator and Santa Claus were taken up by Geoffrey Palmer.