 He served as a radio engineer in the Royal Air Force during World War II.He was best known for his role as Ernest Bishop in "Coronation Street".Introduced as wedding photographer Gordon Bishop in a 1967 episode dedicated to one of Elsie Tanner's marriages, he later re-emerged as the regular character Ernie and played the character from 1969 until being written out in a fatal shooting during a burglary at Mike Baldwin's factory in 1978.