He left school at 16, working first for a telephone company, then for Liverpool Corporation, as the city council was then known, before the Second World War.

During this time, Gregson became interested in amateur dramatics, joining first the local Catholic church theatre group at St Anthony's in Mossley Hill.

Gregson appeared alongside Alec Guinness in the play The Human Touch in the West End.

He also starred in Roger MacDougall's comedy Macadam and Eve and later enjoyed success in Hugh Hastings's play Seagulls Over Sorrento at the Apollo Theatre.

One of Gregson's first screen appearances was in the film Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), a tearjerking romance starring Joan Greenwood and Stewart Granger.

(1949) and Train of Events (1949), as well as The Hasty Heart (1949), Cairo Road (1950), Treasure Island (1950) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951).

[1][17] Gregson had a big hit with a war film, Above Us the Waves (1956), playing an Australian, in support of John Mills.

[1] More successful was another war movie based on a true story, The Battle of the River Plate (1956) in which Gregson played F. S.

Gregson appeared in It's the Geography That Counts, the last play at the St James's Theatre before its closure and demolition in 1957.

[35] In January 1975, Gregson died suddenly from a heart attack near Porlock Weir, Somerset, aged 55, whilst on holiday, walking on the path to St. Beuno's Church, Culbone.

His body was interred at Sunbury Cemetery, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey near his family home at Creek House, Chertsey Road, Shepperton.