Achieved success as Maggs the gardener in BBC Radio's long-running weekday serial "Mrs Dale's Diary" on the Light Programme, whom he played for 14 years. No recordings of any of these performances are known to have survived, however.
At his own instigation, wore a false moustache as Albert Tatlock in "Coronation Street" (1960).
Began a lifelong involvement with the acting world as a child selling programmes at Rochdale's Theatre Royal. It was in his blood, as his father had been a comedian.
Following WWII he attempted to set himself up as a performer of light comic songs, self-promoting with the tag, "Jack Howarth, Popular Exponent of Modern Song".
He was awarded the M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1983 for his services to drama.
When asked by an Independent Television News researcher in 1982 about when he intended to retire (he was 86 at the time), he is reported to have said that he was too old to retire.