Taking a liking to the strings, He initially took up the violin but struggled to progress. When he was 15 he took up the cello, encouraged by and learning from his uncle Frank Leonard. Frank Leonard played cello in the London Symphony Orchestra and also enjoyed painting. He was a significant role model for Ken during his upbringing, and was a likely trigger for his love of painting, though it didn't become an interest for him until much later.
He had won a scholarship with the Royal Academy of Music in 1937 but by 1940 World War II prevented him from finishing. He became a member of the Honourable Artillery Company and continued to play the cello in the officers' mess hall and also for a dance band in which he would play the double bass.
In 1944 Ken was introduced to Barbara by her mother, Elisabeth Grindley who praised Ken as a wonderful musicain but would not agree to Barbara and Ken getting married until Ken secured a reliable job. By the end of the war Ken auditioned for the LSO in 1946. With only one other cellist auditioning at the time, he got the part. Two years later Ken and Barbara got married and moved to Hampstead in London.
Hampstead was an ideal home for Ken, being known for it's high number of creative and intellectual residents. He made many sketches and paintings of places in Hampstead including Kenwood, Church Row, Hampstead High Street, Perrins Court.
In 1964 the LSO would take their first world tour visiting Israel, Turkey, Iran, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and the United States. It was at this time that Kens art really came into fruition, making sketches and later painting the places he visited.
Ken's wife Barbara soon found she had an artistic tallent of her own. She would sit in on LSO rehersals and sketch the musicains in action, often working on concert programmes or any paper availible at the time.
In 1966 the LSO made their first visit to Daytona Beach in Florida, USA and loved the warm welcome and hosiptality this city offered them.
Ken continued painting and playing right up to just days before his death,
completing 42 years as a cellist with the LSO. In 1987 he contracted
acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma and died on the
12th May 1988 at the Royal Free Hospital.