julian_craster

Daily Telegrapoh Obituary
Peter Hawkins

18/07/2006

Peter Hawkins, who died on July 8 aged 82, had a voice beloved by generations of young television viewers from the 1950s.
He produced the crisp military tones of Sir Prancelot, the electronically processed metallic menace of the Daleks' "Ex-ter-min-ate" and the high-pitched, blustering demands of Captain Pugwash; he also provided voices for The Woodentops, SuperTed, Rainbow (he was Zippy in the first series), The Family Ness, Jet-Set, Skylark and Penny Crayon.
But it was the language of Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, which he called "oddle poddle", that became best known. Hawkins created this by rendering a script in plain English into gibberish which was comprehensible to small viewers. However, it remained largely a mystery to their elders, who had difficulty recognising that "flobbadob" meant flowerpot, even though the word has since become part of popular language.

A policeman's son, Peter John Hawkins was born at Brixton, south London, on April 3 1924, and made his first stage appearance as a member of the chorus in a musical sketch at school in Clapham. At 14 he wrote, with three friends, a revue entitled The Five Bs. He ran with the Herne Hill Harriers.
After the outbreak of war Hawkins joined the Royal Navy, and survived, though a piece of shrapnel pierced his clothing, when the destroyer Limbourne sank after being torpedoed off the coast of northern France. While recuperating he took part in plays and pantomimes, which led to his being taken into Combined Operations Entertainments. Towards the end of the war he toured the Continent and went to Vancouver with the topical revue Pacific Showboat.
On being demobbbed Hawkins worked at the East Riding Theatre, and then did a two-year course at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where he won a sonnet-speaking prize. His first West End appearance was as Joe Gorme in Sit Down a Minute, Adrian at the Comedy. He made his television debut as Albert Tuggeridge in an adaptation of The Good Companions.
Hawkins made a significant advance in his career when he started to provide the voice for the puppet Mr Turnip, who sat on the presenter Humphrey Lestocq's shoulder making caustic remarks in the children's show Whirligig.
He worked with many familiar names in television, and appeared, heavily made up, as a wizard, a bishop, Friar Tuck and the captain of a Mexican firing squad in many episodes of Dave Allen at Large. His voice-over work for advertisements included playing a money sign for Access and providing the laughter of little Martian robots for Cadbury's Smash. He claimed that his weirdest job was providing the voice of a female medium channelling the words of the Pharoah Tutankhamun; and that the most difficult was being an Albanian interpreter who spoke English with a German accent.
Hawkins made a considerable amount of money, and managed to amass a collection of works by Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Sutherland, Epstein and Elisabeth Frink as well as a fine collection of Japanese sword guards. He was also very keen on Japanese food, though he could not abide bananas or tea.
He married, in 1956, the actress Rosemary Miller, with whom he had a son, Silas, who provides the voices for the animated series Summerton Mill on the digital children's channel CBeebies.
Looking back on his career, Peter Hawkins said that he had had two ambitions: to become a famous actor and a successful one. "I've realised the second," he said, "and I'm grateful."

Rob Compton

Thank you Julian - I hadn't heard this news. The programmes Peter Hawkins was involved in were part of my childhood

rgds
Rob

steereomono

Thanks also from me Julian - for this post.
Sad news - he was the omnipresent voice of Children's TV from the 60s onwards.
A great talent with a huge sense of fun.

Marky B

It is indeed sad news. Although more famous for his voice than his face,his conbtribution to children's television is inestimable. Rest in Peace,Peter,and on behalf of those who grew up with your dulcet tones - a big,big thank you
Ta Ta
Marky B:)

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

julian_craster

The Times July 20, 2006

Peter Hawkins
April 3, 1924 - July 8, 2006
Gifted artist who gave voice to much-loved characters such as Bill and Ben and the evil Daleks


THE ACTOR and master voiceover artist Peter Hawkins created the voices for some of British television’s most memorable animated characters, including Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men, the Woodentops and Captain Pugwash. Most famously, he spoke for the Daleks in Doctor Who whose metallic cries of “Ex-ter-min-ate!” were imitated by millions of youngsters all over Britain in the Sixties and Seventies.
His inventive vocal talents were also used in Rainbow (he was Zippy in the first series) SuperTed, The Perishers and The Family-Ness and he dramatically announced the opening credits of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.


The son of a policeman, Peter John Hawkins was born in Brixton, South London, in 1924. From an early age he appeared in school plays and local amateur shows. He served in the Navy during the Second World War and in 1943 survived the sinking of HMS Limbourne. After recuperating he performed in touring forces shows throughout Europe.
Once demobbed, Hawkins trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and he made his West End debut in Sit Down a Minute, Adrian (Comedy Theatre, 1948).
He first appeared as a TV actor in 1949 in a production of The Good Companions but the following year he provided the voice of Mr Turnip, the obnoxious puppet in Whirligig, Britain’s first television magazine programme for children.
Hawkins had found his forte and was quickly in demand to voice other children’s programmes. He invented Bill and Ben’s “flobbadob” gibberish in Flower Pot Men (BBC, 1952-54) — flobbadob meant flowerpot — and he was the voice of The Woodentops (BBC, 1955-58), the industrious farmyard puppet family and their giant dog, Spotty.
His voice was used to great effect in Captain Pugwash, the animated series drawn by John Ryan which began life as a comic strip in the Eagle. A perennial favourite with young and old viewers, it featured tales of a podgy pirate Captain Horatio Pugwash and the hapless work-shy crew of the Black Pig. Hawkins voiced all the characters in the show and its successor in 1972, The Adventures of Sir Prancelot.
With a fellow actor, David Graham, Hawkins developed the sinister staccato voice of Doctor Who’s notorious adversary, the Daleks. Programme producers had planned for the Daleks to have human voices, but the sound engineer Brian Hodgson, together with Graham and Hawkins, came up with the peculiar metallic tones by speaking through a ring modulator. Hawkins voiced the Daleks from 1963-67 and in 1966 extended his contribution to the programme by providing the voices of the aggressive silver humanoids, the Cybermen.
Throughout his career Hawkins continued to appear in small roles on television, often cast as a policeman or officials. He played a variety of characters in Dave Allen at Large (1971) and was also seen in series such as Father Brown (1974) and Dial M for Murder (1974). Much in demand for commercials, he was memorably the voice of the laughing Martian robots in the Cadburys’ Smash advertisements in the Seventies.
Hawkins was a noted lover of art and among his considerable collection were works by Pisarro, Sutherland and Monet.
In 1956 he married the actress Rosemary Miller, with whom he had a son.


Peter Hawkins, actor and voiceover artist, was born on April 3, 1924. He died on July 8, 2006, aged 82.

Mr Magister

The Independent 15/07/06

Peter John Hawkins, actor: born London 3 April 1924; married 1956 Rosemary Miller (one son); died London 8 July 2006.

What do the following have in common? Bill and Ben's frequently uttered, indecipherable comment "Flobbadob" in The Flowerpot Men. The blustering Captain Pugwash's "Plundering porpoises! Jumping jellyfish! Harrowing hurricanes!" The urgent, on-the-edge-of-your-seat voice announcing Hergé's Adventures of Tintin. And the Daleks' menacing, robotic exhortation of:"Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!" The voice behind all these television favourites was the actor Peter Hawkins.

It was Hawkins' inventive voice-play that made The Flowerpot Men (1952-54) so distinctive. Only the second programme to feature in BBC television's daytime Watch With Mother slot, aimed at pre-school viewers following the success of Andy Pandy, it featured two gangly, identical marionette puppets, Bill and Ben, with legs made out of inverted clay pots and wearing outsize hobnail boots and gardening gloves. They lived in large flowerpots outside a potting-shed at the bottom of the garden, either side of Little Weed - actually, more of a sunflower - who told them when it was safe to come out and play, and kept an eye out for the dreaded gardener.

With Julia Williams narrating and Gladys Whitred singing the songs and providing the voice of Little Weed ("Weeeeee-d!"), Hawkins improvised Bill and Ben's scripted lines in a gibberish fashion that has been likened to the technique employed by the nonsense-spouting comedian Stanley Unwin - an icicle was an "ickle-kickle", for instance - while giving Bill a high-pitched squeak and Ben lower tones to differentiate them. "Flobbadob" was the pair's word for "flowerpot".

Hawkins called their language "Oddle-poddle" and, although concerns were voiced about it holding back children's development, The Flowerpot Men became one of the best-loved programmes from the so-called Golden Age of television and continued to be repeated for two decades.

When Captain Pugwash (1957-66), which began as a comic strip in The Eagle, came to television, Hawkins was responsible for all the voices, from the blustering pirate and his work-shy crew on the Black Pig to the various rogues and vagabonds they encountered on the high seas, such as Cut-Throat Jake. Pugwash's creator, John Ryan, devised a form of animation using cut-out puppets with cardboard levers to move their eyes, mouths and limbs, as well as to rock the boats."Almost as important as the pictures is the sound," explained Ryan.

At the recording studio we meet Peter Hawkins, the actor whose ability to speak with any number of different voices is truly amazing. Peter tells the story and speaks the parts of all the characters into the microphone, and it's very hard to keep a straight face as he does it because he has a way of miming the action as well!

Hawkins was also in demand to dub voices in English-language versions of foreign animation, most notably Hergé's Adventures of Tintin (1962-63), 50 fast-moving, five-minute episodes based on the newspaper comic strip created by the Belgian writer-artist Georges Remi, featuring the boy reporter and his faithful dog Snowy, along with their seafaring friend Captain Haddock.

Then came two of Hawkins's most enduring creations, both in the early years of Doctor Who and spanning the first two incarnations of television's Timelord, the actors William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton.

With David Graham, Hawkins shared the original voices of the Daleks (1963-67), who made their dramatic entrance in the science-fiction serial's second, seven-episode story, written by Terry Nation and set on the planet Skaro. The pair's voices were processed electronically at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to give a distinctive sound and the Daleks quickly became the Doctor's No 1 adversaries, helping to make the programme popular with viewers. Indeed, many children could be seen going round with saucepans on their heads at the time. Hawkins and Graham also voiced the 1965 film spin-off Doctor Who and the Daleks.

Hawkins then became the first voice of the Cybermen (1966-68), the shiny, cybernetically augmented humanoids, with their distinctive sound created by fitting him with a dental plate containing a microphone, originally designed for people who had undergone laryngotomies.

Born in London in 1924, Peter Hawkins was the son of a police inspector and enjoyed acting in school productions, then in troop shows, while serving with the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, made his West End stage début as Joe Gorme in Sit Down a Minute, Adrian (Comedy Theatre, 1948) and was first seen on television as Albert Tuggeridge in a BBC adaptation of J.B. Priestley's The Good Companions (1949).

Spotted by the presenter and puppeteer Humphrey Lestocq, Hawkins joined the children's variety show Whirligig (1950-56), appearing in front of the camera and providing voices for two puppets, the obnoxious Mr Turnip and the mischievous parrot Porterhouse.

This led to more than 40 years as a much in-demand voice-over artist. Hawkins followed The Flowerpot Men by becoming one of the voices in The Woodentops (1955-58), the adventures of a family of wooden dolls living on a farm, also in the Watch With Mother slot.

When John Ryan, the Captain Pugwash creator, launched The Adventures of Sir Prancelot (1972), about a heroic knight and his household setting off to the Holy Land for the Crusades, Hawkins provided all the voices. He was also heard as Zippy in the first series of Rainbow (1972) and, among dozens of productions, later narrated SuperTed (1982-86, commissioned by the Welsh channel S4C) and the Spot the Dog sequel It's Fun to Learn with Spot (1990).

Although seen in front of the camera less frequently over the years, Hawkins appeared in three series of the sketch show Dave Allen at Large (1972-75), playing characters such as a cone-headed bishop, Friar Tuck and the captain of a Mexican firing squad.

Anthony Hayward

David Brent

A sad loss indeed.
Peter Hawkins was the voice to many of my favourite children's programs as I grew up.
Although he didn't have much dialogue to work with in the Flowerpot Men.
"Bebopdebop weed !"

I also remember Peter starring in the the series 'Softly,Softly' which was a follow on from the popular 'Z Cars'. 'Softly Softly' was a great series and for its time was one of the most realistic and hard hitting dramas on British television.

Dave.