Kenneth Kendall is a retired
BritishThe British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
broadcaster. He was a contemporary of
Richard BakerRichard Baker OBE is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall and was the first person to read the BBC Television News in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet, North London...
and
Robert DougallRobert Dougall MBE was a British broadcaster and ornithologist, mainly known as a newsreader and announcer.-Television news:...
. Although he worked for many years as a newsreader for the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, he is perhaps better remembered in recent years as the host of the game show
Treasure HuntTreasure Hunt was a popular UK game show, based on the format of the French show La Chasse au Trésor, created by Jacques Antoine. It appeared on Channel 4 between 28 December 1982 and 18 May 1989 and was revived by BBC Two between 16 December 2002 and 2 August 2003.-The game:A team of two...
(1982–89).
Early life
Kendall was born in
South IndiaSouth India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
, where his father, Frederic William Kendall (d. 30 May 1945) worked, and was brought up in
CornwallCornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
.
Education
Kendall was educated at
Felsted SchoolFelsted School, an English co-educational day and boarding independent school, situated in Felsted, Essex. It is in the British Public School tradition, and was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich who, as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, acquired...
, an
independent schoolAn independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
in the village of
FelstedFelsted is linked to Little Dunmow by the Flitch Way Country Park, a former railway line. The village has links to Lord Riche who founded the public school, The Felsted School, in 1564, and is buried in Holy Cross Church. Lord Riche was an important benefactor of the Felsted church. The school also...
near
Great DunmowGreat Dunmow is an ancient market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England in which the great Shannon Gray, also known as Hazzah Potter, lives...
in
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, followed by
Corpus Christi CollegeCorpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...
at the
University of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in
OxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, where he studied Modern Languages.
Career
Kendall served as a schoolmaster and later as a Captain in the
Coldstream GuardsHer Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....
during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and was injured on
D-DayD-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
. He joined the BBC in 1948 as a radio newsreader and transferred to television in 1954. Though he was not the first person to read the news on BBC television, Kendall was the first newsreader to appear in vision (1955). As he was employed on a freelance basis by the BBC, he also worked as an actor for a repertory company based in
CreweCrewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...
, and briefly at Austin Reed in
Regent StreetRegent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
, where he met actor
John InmanFrederick John Inman was an English actor best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, a British sitcom in the 1970s and 1980s. Inman was also well known in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame....
and offered him a job in the Crewe company.
Kendall became known for his elegant dress sense and was even voted best-dressed newsreader by
Style International and No.1 newscaster by
Daily Mirror readers in 1979. He left the BBC in 1961. From 1961 to 1969 he was a freelance newsreader, working occasionally for ITN and presenting
Southern TelevisionSouthern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...
's
Day By Day. He appeared as himself in the
Adam Adamant episode "The Doomsday Plan" where he is kidnapped and impersonated. He appeared in a cameo role as a newsreader in
2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, as well as in the
Doctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial
The War MachinesThe War Machines is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 4 weekly parts from 25 June to 16 July 1966...
.
He rejoined the BBC in 1969 and finally retired from newsreading in 1981, allowing him to work on the very popular Channel Four programme
Treasure HuntTreasure Hunt was a popular UK game show, based on the format of the French show La Chasse au Trésor, created by Jacques Antoine. It appeared on Channel 4 between 28 December 1982 and 18 May 1989 and was revived by BBC Two between 16 December 2002 and 2 August 2003.-The game:A team of two...
throughout its first run (1982–1989), which featured
Anneka Rice as a "skyrunner". He has also presented the television programme
Songs of PraiseSongs of Praise is a BBC Television programme based around traditional Christian hymns. It is a widely watched and long-running religious television programme, one of the few peak-time free-to-air religious programmes in Europe Songs of Praise is a BBC Television programme based around traditional...
.
Soon after retirement from newsreading, Kendall lent his voice to the
BBC MicroThe BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
as part of
Acorn ComputersAcorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro, and the Acorn Archimedes...
' hardware speech synthesis solution.
In 2010 he took part in BBC's
The Young Ones, in which six celebrities in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s.
Personal life
Kendall lives in
CowesCowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...
on the
Isle of WightThe Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
with his partner Mark Fear, where he is the owner of a marine
art galleryAn art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
, and is a keen beekeeper. Before owning the art gallery, he co-ran a restaurant: this was revealed in an interview in
Radio TimesRadio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
in 1996.
External links