Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2011 | Page 56

INTERVIEW

smile, but on one occasion at the end
of a bulletin there was a funny story.
I started laughing and the editor was
absolutely furious. He later insisted
no one be given a story that made us
laugh or smile!”
Before autocue, typists typed out
the bulletins and they were
projected over the camera.
Kenneth recalls: “The girl who
had typed it sat on a stool next
to the screen to help smooth
running. But on one occasion
a girl had been out rather late
to a party the night before,
and during the bulletin she fell
off the stool with a crash. It
was very hard not to laugh!”
Kenneth left the BBC in
1961, and for eight years
worked as a freelance, even
popping up occasionally on
rival channel ITN, showing he was
much more than just the man reading
the 9 o’clock news. He recalls: “I
wanted to get more experience in other
aspects of television because I felt very
limited only reading the news.”
As a result he also appeared in cameo
roles as himself or as ‘a reporter’
in popular TV programmes ‘Adam
Adamant’ and ‘Dr. Who’ and was even
in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, of which
he is enormously proud.

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He last appeared on TV in the 2001
series ‘The Young Ones’, in which
he was one of several celebrities in
their 70s and 80s who attempted
to overcome some of the problems
of ageing by returning to a 1970s
environment.
Unfortunately during filming
he fell and broke two bones in
his back, so didn’t par ticularly
enjoy the show. But having
virtually made a full recovery,
the man who brought us the
news for so many years can
still often be seen working in
his highly successful Kendall’s
Fine Art Gallery in Cowes.
“We use the internet quite a
bit to sell paintings. I couldn’t
have imagined things like
internet or even the mobile
Kenneth with friends at a social event
phone would be around when
I first read the news on television back
win money.
in 1955,” he concluded. “When I look
“The programme once came to the
Isle of Wight and by chance the couple at some of the people around that
are my age, I have to say I have been
on it on that occasion had been here
awfully lucky. There are a lot worse off
on holiday only the week before.
than I am.
Needless to say they won,” smiled
“I sometimes think ‘surely I can’t be
Kenneth, who first came to the Island
87’, but then I realise I am. During
himself as a visitor in the 1960s and
moved here permanently in 1990, after that time a lot has happened – to
me and to the world. But I wouldn’t
realising his native Cornwall was too
change much.”
far away for regular commuting to
London.
He later returned to the BBC where
he last read the news on television
in 1981. He later became the studio
anchorman for seven years for Channel
Four’s ‘Treasure Hunt’, in which
Anneka Rice flew around the country
with couples trying to solve clues to