obituary from the torygraph:
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."
