Published: 02 September 2010
by TOM FOOT

IT was just another lazy Sunday afternoon in Hampstead, but Ken Howard was on the verge of a chance encounter that would change his life. 

The young schoolboy had spotted the BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby outside the Flask Pub. 

“I went straight up to him and asked him how I could get into TV,” Ken recalls. Dimbleby invited Ken down to the BBC’s White City headquarters and stayed true to his word, treating him to chocolate eclairs before a full tour of the studios. “From that moment I was hooked,” said Ken. 

An extraordinary career was to follow, including Number 1 hits, writing songs for Elvis Presley and West End musicals.

Ken lives in Arkwright Road, in Hampstead, where he grew up and near his former University College School. He recalls writing songs at an early age with fellow pupil Alan Blaikley, and working on a radical school magazine called the Phoenix, which was banned by then headteacher CS Walton. 

After studying at Edinburgh University, he took a job at the BBC, first working as a toilet cleaner and later as a scene shifter. “I worked my way up and eventually became a director,” he says. 

Ken and Alan had remained in contact and became the pop-writing duo behind some of the UK’s best 1960s hits, including The Honeycombs’ Have I The Right? and hits by The Tremeloes and The Herd. They were also behind the Brit-pop group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch. 

“In those days the BBC owned everything you did. When Alan and I wrote Have I The Right? it went straight to Number 1. The BBC top brass were not happy – when we told them we would continue writing they said you cannot stay here. So we left.”

Always writing with Alan, Ken recalled how a desperate producer rang him with the query: “Have you got anything for Elvis?” The pair wrote I’ve Lost You (1970) – selling more than a million copies. It was the first British duo to write for the pop star. 

In television, Ken was the director of A Penny For Your Dreams about John Lennon, Sunny Stories about Enid Blyton, and art house documentaries on Frank Sinatra, Johnnie Ray and Maxim Vengerov. His West End musicals include Mardi Gras and Matilda. 

A chairman of the Casey Trust for children, he also devises board games and owns a company called Sophisticated Games. In his spare time he records “Lifeforce” interviews for an unpublished archive he is compiling. 

His songwriting days now behind him, Ken has published his first “teen” book. 

“I remember there was a children’s story about a young boy who has to become chieftain of a Scottish Clan after his father died. Well, I thought: What would it be like today for a black American?” 

The idea went to Granada, who pitched it to Disney, who agreed a deal. 

“Then suddenly I got a call from Disney. They said: ‘Ken, we’ve got a problem. Disney don’t do dead parents.’ I said that’s ridiculous – what about The Lion King? They said that’s different – that’s animation. I thought, f*** it – I’m going to write a book anyway.”

The Young Chieftan sees an unwilling hero, Jamie, leave the Los Angeles youth culture of iPods and PlayStations to find himself at the heart of ancient feuds in a remote Scottish island – so far removed there is no mobile reception. 

“I love things that communicate,” Ken explains. “That’s what I’ve always loved. It has been with me since the beginning I suppose – that kind of floating mood that takes you along. It’s the creative process.” 

• The Young Chieftain. By Ken Howard. Random House, £5.99. The book is being launched at Waterstones in Hampstead on September 15