For businessman Richard Kitchen-Dunn every day was Christmas.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn, who has died aged 80, was the founder with his wife Gloria of Lockwood-based KD Decoratives – manufacturing and supplying festive decorations and animated figures such as snowmen, reindeer and Santas to shopping centres across the country.
The company, established by the couple in 1977, grew to employ scores of people designing, sculpting, assembling and painting animated and static displays – not just for retailers at Christmas but also for theme parks and other leisure venues in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn, who was managing director and later chairman of the company, was immensely proud of the family business and delighted in showing visitors around the firm’s premises at Bath Mills, Albert Street. A veritable Santa’s workshop, the building included a 12,000sq ft showroom decked out as a Christmas grotto featuring an ever-changing display of animatronics complete with a train on which visitors could ride around the displays.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn was born in 1934 in Cleethorpes to parents who were on the stage entertaining in clubs and small theatres. At the age of eight, the family were living in London at the height of the Blitz. After a bomb badly damaged their house, they moved to the home of Richard’s grandmother in Bradford and later to Sheffield, where Richard attended school.
Coming from a musical family, young Richard enjoyed a brief singing career himself on TV and radio after being discovered by Canadian Carroll Levis, whose massively popular 1950s talent shows for young people were a forerunner to Opportunity Knocks and today’s X Factor.
As a teenager, Richard also played for Leeds United’s junior team and even got to play with the great John Charles before a cartilage injury and National Service put paid to a footballing career. In the RAF, Richard served four years to gain his corporal stripes and become a physical training instructor.
Leaving the forces at 21, he worked as a printer’s labourer at John Waddington’s before one day walking into the Leeds branch of retailer Vallance’s and asking the manager fo a job as a salesman. After a few months, he was helping the firm’s window dresser. His bosses were so impressed that they offered him the role of display manager, travelling around the country decorating all the firm’s stores – and doubled his salary to £1,200.
Richard later became a window dresser with a display company before setting up KD Decoratives in 1977.
Among its major contracts, the firm has designed and built displays for Manchester’s Trafford Centre, Meadowhall, Hamley’s toyshop, Harrods, Legoland Windsor, shopping centres and theme parks in Dubai, Norway and Chile as well as museums and P&O cruise liners.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn was also proud of his company’s Huddersfield roots, supporting the town’s Place to Make It marketing campaign and winning a Business of the Year Award in 2003 for taking the Huddersfield name around the globe.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn, who lived at Cowcliffe, leaves his wife, Gloria, their three sons Jamie, David and Matthew and eight grandchildren.
Jamie said: “My father had a lot of friends among the business people in Huddersfield and business was his life. His absolute love was gardening. He took great pride in his garden.”
Mr Kitchen-Dunn also took pride in his many cars over the years, which boasted the personalised plates 333KD. Jamie said the registation number would be inscribed on a brass plate on his father’s coffin “to send him off with a smile”.
Mr Kitchen-Dunn passed away peacefully at home on last Wednesday, just three days after the death of his brother William, who was 78.
A funeral service will take place at 11am on Tuesday, March 24, at St Stephen’s Church, Lindley.
