28 Facts About Peter Hawkins

Peter John Hawkins was born on 3 April 1924 in Hargwyne Street in Brixton, south London, to Detective Inspector John Stephen and piano player Doris Matilda.

Peter Hawkins worked at Pitman's from the ages of 16 to 18, writing similar shows at a youth club.

Peter Hawkins joined the Royal Navy, entertaining with impressions for which he wrote scripts, and survived when HMS Limbourne sank after being torpedoed escorting the cruiser Charybdis near Guernsey.

Peter Hawkins was rescued by Ronnie Hill, a theatre actor at the time, and while recovering, Hawkins took part in plays, which resulted in his being taken into Combined Operations' Entertainments productions of the Royal Naval Barracks' Scran Bag.

Peter Hawkins joined the show after being asked by the producer of a children's serial he was playing the villain for.

In 1952, Peter Hawkins became the voices of both Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men, for which he invented their Oddle-Poddle language.

Peter Hawkins made Bill's voice higher-pitched and Ben's lower-pitches to distinguish them, and praised the puppetry of Audrey Atterbury.

The scripts would be written in English, and Peter Hawkins would translate them into Oddle-Poddle, creating words similar to "Slogalog" and "Haddap".

In 1956, Peter Hawkins married actress Rosemary Miller, who he met doing voices on Toytown.

Peter Hawkins was Ernest the Policeman, and reprised the role for the 1972 series.

Peter Hawkins would meet Roy Skelton during Toytown, becoming a close friend.

Peter Hawkins would be offered the role of a Doctor in Miller's star series Emergency Ward 10, although due to his many voice roles, he was unable to appear.

Peter Hawkins gained a reputation for pulling off difficult character voices, which led to him being cast as the Daleks in Doctor Who in 1963.

Peter Hawkins solved this problem by raising the voice's pitch when the Daleks got angry.

In 1966, Peter Hawkins voiced the Cybermen in the fourth and final part of the Doctor Who serial The Tenth Planet, originated by Roy Skelton.

Peter Hawkins considered the story and cast of his last Dalek story, The Evil of the Daleks, to be the best.

Peter Hawkins never returned afterwards, as he had enough of having to fund it himself.

Peter Hawkins was going to be the voice of K9 before John Leeson, with whom Hawkins had worked with on the first year of Thames Television's Rainbow, won the role.

In 1972, Peter Hawkins joined the ensemble of Dave Allen at Large, even writing various skits, and staying until 1978, as well as voicing Zippy in Rainbow.

Peter Hawkins tried to rewrite gags, which proved hard for the target audience, and so left the series, despite being asked to stay.

Peter Hawkins was eventually replaced by Roy Skelton, whom he recommended.

Peter Hawkins claimed the reason for being able to remember such voices was that he believed that the right voice would appear if the right ideas were thought in a live-action role, and used the same thoughts to reprise the role.

Peter Hawkins eventually decided to make Gromit a mute character to save on the effort required to animate his mouth, instead using his eyes and monobrow to communicate.

Peter Hawkins was interested in jewellery, fossils, "serious" music and eating out.

Peter Hawkins considered his collection as "applause" for his busy yet anonymous voice work.

Peter Hawkins regularly smoked 20 Olivier cigarettes in his prime, and, later, it would give him eczema.

In 1992, Peter Hawkins had an operation to remove a tumor in his brain, which left him unable to read and made him very drowsy.

Peter Hawkins died on 8 July 2006, aged 82, of pneumonia.