Kenneth Horne - Postwar

Postwar

In 1945 Much Binding was well enough established to be given its own weekly slot for a 39-week run. With the coming of peace, the supposed RAF station became a civil airport, and the show continued much as before, written by and starring Horne and Murdoch, with Sam Costa and Maurice Denham. By now, Horne had been demobilised from the RAF and returned to civilian life as Sales Director of Triplex. His business career was demanding, and his radio commitments had to be fitted in around it. After nine years in his senior position at Triplex, he moved in 1954 to be Managing Director of the British Industries Fair, a government-backed organisation promoting British goods worldwide. In the same year, Much Binding came to the end of its run. In 1956, the government withdrew its funding and the BIF closed. Horne received several attractive invitations, and chose the post of Chairman and Managing Director of Chad Valley toy manufacturers. He was a success in the post, but in 1958 he suffered a debilitating stroke. His doctors warned him that when he had recovered he would never be fit enough to combine a full-time business post with his broadcasting work. He decided to give up the former in favour of the latter.

After easing himself back into broadcasting as chairman of the radio panel game Twenty Questions, he began the second of his three major BBC radio series, Beyond Our Ken. This show was written by Eric Merriman and, for the first two series, Barry Took; Horne's supporting players were Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Ron Moody (soon succeeded by Bill Pertwee). Around the imperturbable establishment figure of Horne the other performers played a gallery of grotesque characters, including the exaggeratedly upper class Rodney and Charles, the genteel pensioners Ambrose and Felicity, the cook Fanny Haddock, and the gardener Arthur Fallowfield.

When Beyond Our Ken came to an end in 1964, the BBC commissioned a replacement series, Round the Horne, on similar lines, from Barry Took and Marty Feldman. Horne remained the genial and unflappable focal figure, and the writers invented a new lot of eccentric characters to revolve round him. They included J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, the walking slum; the Noël Coward parodies Charles and Fiona; the incompetent villain Dr Chu En Ginsberg; the dreadful folk singer Rambling Syd Rumpo and the outrageously camp Julian and Sandy.

Towards the end of his life, Horne starred in the ABC television series Horne A'Plenty. With Barry Took as script editor (and later producer), this was an attempt to translate the spirit of Round the Horne to TV, though with different actors supporting Horne: Graham Stark, for example, substituted for Kenneth Williams and Sheila Steafel for Betty Marsden. The first six-part series ran from 22 June to 27 July 1968, the second (by which time ABC had become Thames Television) from 27 November to 1 January 1969. No recordings survive of either series other than a videotape of the Christmas edition in rehearsal.

His other TV appearances included Down You Go, What's My Line?, Camera One, Ken's Column, Trader Horne (a weekly advertising magazine for the Tyne Tees region), Let's Imagine, Call My Bluff (as team captain), and various specials with Richard Murdoch such as Free and Easy (1953) and Show for the Telly (1956). In addition, he hosted a 1965 game show called Treasure Hunt for Westward Television. He was the subject of This is Your Life on 19 February 1962.

His radio appearances were legion, including hosting Housewives' Choice and acting as chairman of Twenty Questions and Top of the Form. He was twice a castaway on Desert Island Discs – first in April 1954 in tandem with Richard Murdoch and then on his own in January 1961. He was also popular on Woman's Hour and wrote a monthly article for She magazine for over a decade, starting in January 1957.

Because of his heart condition, Horne had been prescribed blood-thinning pills, but had stopped taking the anti-coagulants on the misguided advice of a faith healer. He died of a heart attack on Friday 14 February 1969, while hosting the annual Guild of Television Producers' and Directors' Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Presenting the awards was Earl Mountbatten of Burma; an award had just gone to Barry Took and Marty Feldman (writers of Round the Horne) for their TV series Marty, and Horne had just urged viewers to tune into the fifth series of Round the Horne (due to start on 16 March) when he fell from the podium. The televised version of the event omitted the incident, bridging the gap with announcer Michael Aspel saying, "Mr Horne was taken ill at this point and has since died."

He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium.