Kenneth Cope(1931-2024)

Kenneth Cope was a Liverpudlian actor, writer and restaurateur, the son of an engineer. On stage, he had a lengthy association with the Bristol Old Vic Company at the Theatre Royal, beginning in 1951. In 1953, Cope also debuted on television, and, for the first two decades played rank and file soldiers and professional men in episodic television and in occasional films. He appeared as himself (1962-1963) in the satirical series That Was the Week That Was (1962). As petty crook Jed Stone, Cope was a semi-regular resident of Coronation Street (1960) during the early and mid-sixties, later resurfacing in the role after an absence of 42 years. He had another recurring stint as the widower Ray Hilton during the latter stages of the soap Brookside (1982) (1999-2002).

His most popular role on television was that of the cynical ghost of murdered private eye Marty Hopkirk in ITC's Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969). He is also well remembered for his two appearances in the Carry On series of films: as the lazy, socialist union rep Vic Spanner in Carry on at Your Convenience (1971); and in Carry on Matron (1972) as Cyril Carter, the son of a thief (played by the inimitable Sidney James). The zany plot has Cope's character emotionally blackmailed into posing as a female nurse in order to purloin a stock of contraceptive pills from a maternity hospital. Also for the big screen, Cope was incongruously cast as the Mongol general Subotai in the glossy international co-production Genghis Khan (1965), starring Omar Sharif.

Cope made repeat appearances as different personae in TV's The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955), Z Cars (1962), Dixon of Dock Green (1955), Minder (1979) and The Bill (1984). He also wrote several episodes of That Was the Week that Was, the children's soccer series Striker (1975) (which he also created) and the sitcom The Squirrels (1974). As Percy James, he played the main lead in the short-lived TV sitcom Bootle Saddles (1984), about a group of Wild West aficionados who spend their leisure time dressing up and reenacting American frontier adventures. Cope's character was the prime mover in efforts save a failing theme park called 'Apache Wells', sited in the purlieus of Merseyside.

Outside of acting, Cope and his actress-wife Renny Lister were involved in the restaurant business. Their first venture, Martha' Kitchen (named after his daughter) opened in 1974 in the market town of Watlington, in Oxfordshire. In 1983, Cope and his wife bought a pub in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, and transformed it into a restaurant named 'Edward's' (after their second son Nicholas Edward). Prior to 2021, Cope was based in Southport, where he contributed a regular news column to the local paper, the Southport Visitor.

Kenneth Cope died on September 11 2024, aged 93.