[2] Kingsley described his early life as "pretty hard", in a working class family often affected by unemployment.

I was just a kid, mad keen about the game, and my improvement came naturally without any sort of routine, or study, or long hours of practice.

[6] This lasted for about four years; when he lost that job, aged 21, he started playing again, using a cue that Tom Newman had given him.

[7] In 1935, when he was unemployed, his friends collected money for him to enter the English Amateur Billiards Championship; he lost in the Midlands area final to Frank Edwards.

[8] One of the spectators at the final, Mr. J.C. Pitchford, employed Kennerley, who had relevant experience, in the garage of his engineering firm Richard Lloyd.

[8][9][10] In the following year's Championship, he defeated Edwards in the Midlands area final,[8] and reached the quarter-finals of the main competition.

[9] On a tour of India later that year, he set Indian national record breaks in both billiards (1,118) and snooker (77).

[25] He was runner-up in the UK Professional English Billiards Championship in 1950, losing 5,069–9,046 to John Barrie, and again the following year when he was defeated 6,011–8,120 by Fred Davis.

[4] He was scheduled to play Fred Davis at the 1972 World Snooker Championship but withdrew due to illness.

[31] He missed his scheduled match against Jim Meadowcroft at the 1973 Championship due to being hospitalised following a heart attack.

[39] In the preliminary round of the 1981 UK Professional English Billiards Championship, he lost 879–1,078 to John Pulman.