The jaunty theme song to the children’s television show Postman Pat, sung by Ken Barrie, has been the soundtrack to many childhoods and in 1982 became a UK Top 50 hit. Barrie also provided the voice of Pat Clifton, the kindly Royal Mail worker delivering letters in the fictional valley of Greendale in the animated series. The words of the song – opening with “Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his black and white cat … ” – accompanied a sequence showing Pat picking up the post from Mrs Goggins, the postmistress, and travelling in a bright-red van with his feline sidekick, Jess, up hill and down dale in a beautiful location that the programme’s creator, John Cunliffe, based on the picturesque Lake District village of Longsleddale.
Barrie, who has died of liver cancer aged 83, had previously spent years singing in dance bands and as a member of the Mike Sammes Singers, backing stars ranging from the Beatles, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire to Frankie Laine, Perry Como and Barbra Streisand. He was encouraged by Bryan Daly, who wrote the Postman Pat theme, to submit a cassette tape to the show’s producers displaying his talent for voicing characters, which he had developed in commercials. As a result, he became the voice of not only Pat, but also the handyman Ted Glen, farmer Alf Thompson, Granny Dryden, Reverend Timms and others, for a quarter of a century in a programme that was popular around the world.
The first series of 13 episodes, screened in 1981, was directed in stop-frame animation by Ivor Wood, of Magic Roundabout, Paddington Bear and Wombles fame, who set up his Woodland Animations company especially to produce Postman Pat for the BBC. Barrie returned to voice 15 new episodes of the oft-repeated programme in 1991.
Later, after Wood retired, Barrie was back as Pat for three further runs made by Cosgrove Hall Films and Entertainment Rights (2004-06) but handed over to Lewis MacLeod, while continuing to voice other characters, for the first series of Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service (2008), before leaving the much-loved children’s production behind. The actor Stephen Mangan voiced Pat for the 2014 feature film.
Barrie was born Leslie Hulme, in Tunstall, Staffordshire, to Martha (nee Embury, and known as Pat) and Charles, a joiner. On leaving Tunstall High Street county modern boys’ secondary school, he became an apprentice compositor at a local printing firm. In the evenings, he sang at Tunstall British Legion and in working men’s clubs – impersonating stars such as Al Jolson and Johnnie Ray – and with the Ken Griffiths dance band in Potteries town halls.
A year after finishing his national service in the RAF (1953-55), Hulme took a job with a printer in Uxbridge, Middlesex, and auditioned for work as a singer in London. He became resident vocalist with the Lou Preager orchestra at the Hammersmith Palais and changed his professional name to Ken Barrie. He moved on to the Phil Tate band (1961-67) and between 1962 and 1965, both under the name Les Carle and in the group the Typhoons, recorded cover versions of current chart hits for Embassy Records, a budget label whose releases were sold exclusively in Woolworths.
He also fronted his own bands, the Ken Barrie Four and Ken Barrie and the Barrie Tones, and frequently sang on the BBC Light Programme. Later, he performed in Sing It Again (1971) and Late Night Extra (1971) for the channel’s replacement, Radio 2.
As a session singer, he appeared on the Beatles’ White Album track Good Night (1968), which also featured the Mike Sammes Singers. He joined them in 1969 after giving up his dance-band singing. As well as working on stage and on recordings with top stars, they backed acts on Top of the Pops and dozens of TV light-entertainment shows, and performed the Last of the Summer Wine theme song for the sitcom’s 1983 Christmas special. Barrie also worked with the Cliff Adams Singers and the Maggie Stredder Singers.
On his own, he sang the Rod McKuen song Trash in the film Emily (1976), which starred Koo Stark, and the theme song for the sitcom Hi-de-Hi!, Holiday Rock (1980-88). He also dubbed singing voices in TV movies for George C Scott, in Jane Eyre (1970), and Larry Hagman, in Applause (1973).
Barrie displayed his whistling talents in the incidental music throughout the 1977 film The Prince and the Pauper and the 1987 BBC TV serial My Family and Other Animals, based on Gerald Durrell’s book. He voiced a Martini commercial featuring Frank Sinatra, as well as the Martians in the Smash instant mashed potato adverts.
Teaming up with Wood again, he sang the title song of Charlie Chalk, a 1987 animated TV series about a circus clown who becomes shipwrecked on the desert island of Merrytwit. Like Postman Pat, it was much repeated and spawned a huge industry in associated merchandise.
In 2009, Barrie joined Peter Kay’s Animated All Star Band to contribute Postman Pat’s voice to the Official BBC Children in Need Medley, which featured more than 100 animation characters and topped the British singles chart.
Barrie’s wife, Doreen (nee Pye), whom he married in 1954, died in 2009. Their son, Paul, died in a road accident in 1998. He is survived by their daughter, Lorraine.
• Ken Barrie (Leslie Hulme), singer and voice artist, born 9 January 1933; died 29 July 2016