Ken Jones was 83

Ken Jones, who played ‘Horrible’ Ives in Porridge, has died six days before his 84th birthday.

The actor, who also also appeared in the comedies The Liver Birds, Watching and Murder Most Horrid, died from bowel cancer at a nursing home in Merseyside on Thursday.

His sister Edith told BBC News: ‘Ken was very affectionate and entertaining. Even in the nursing home he was keeping the ladies amused.

‘After Porridge people used to recognise him but to him acting was just something he did and enjoyed.'

The Liverpool-born actor's other roles included play a lead character in the sitcom The Squirrels, set in the the accounts department of a fictitious TV rental company. Written by Eric Chappell, who went on to create Rising Damp, it ran for three series from 1974. He also had a lead as an archangel in the 1982 sitcom Dead Ernest, in which Andrew Sachs dies and goes to heaven.

But it as as the despited Ives, HMP Slade’s cheating and snitching inmate, for which he will be best remembered.

Here he is in action:

Published: 15 Feb 2014