KEN Denton was a lucky man.

He rubbed shoulders with some of Britain’s biggest radio stars when they descended on Huddersfield back in the 1950s.

And he relived those memories this week, following the death of Coronation Street star Betty Driver.

Before taking to the cobbles of Weatherfield, Miss Driver was one of Britain’s best-loved music hall stars.

And as the Examiner revealed earlier this week, she delighted more than a thousand workers at the huge David Brown Tractors plant in Meltham in 1952, when she headlined the Workers Playtime show from the canteen.

Mr Denton, 82, of Holme, was editor of the David Brown in-house magazine and got to shadow the technical crew and the stars as they prepared for the broadcast.

It was on October 23 1952, that Miss Driver and the rest of the cast presented their radio show live from Meltham.

She was joined by Douglas Cardew Robinson, George Martin, The Petersen Brothers, musician Jimmy Leach and pianist Fred Harries.

The comedy and music programme was part of the national fabric, serving the British population from the Blitz to the Beatles and became one of the longest running radio shows in history.

Mr Denton said: “I produced the in-house journal for the whole of the David Brown group throughout the 1950s and was able to be there for the whole of the show.

“I watched all the hard work that went into all the preparations.

“I met all the cast although oddly enough, the one that I remember least was Betty Driver.

“I watched the frantic build-up before the lunchtime broadcast. The stars made changes to their scripts to add topicality and the presenter, Philip Robinson, actually wrote his script after 12noon and went on air at 12.25pm.

“The show went down really well with the workers.

“We had rushed through the lunch break, serving 1,000 meals in a little over 15 minutes, so that the canteen could be cleared for the show.

“I got the impression that all the stars enjoyed the factory shows.”

Mr Denton reported on the show in detail in the company magazine, which had a circulation of 10,000 and was sent to every David Brown worker at companies all across the UK.

Workers Playtime was also a big hit when the BBC brought the show to the former Brook Motors factory in St Thomas’s Road, Longroyd Bridge.

The visit there in 1942 was recalled by Norris Brown, who was a young apprentice electrician at the time.

Mr Brown, 83, of Farnley Tyas, said: “It was great show.

“It was held in the works canteen and it was absolutely packed.

“The stars of the show that day were Elsie and Doris Waters, who were really big stars of the time.

“It was a great memory”.

Elsie and Doris were a radio and stage variety double-act, best known for their brilliant comic songs and sketches and for their Cockney characters Gert and Daisy.

They were popular mainly in the 1930s and 1940s and they wrote all their own material.

An oddity on the comedy scene in those days, they were actually women dressed as women.