As a teenager, he was in the Tankersley Amateur Dramatics Society and taught himself ventriloquism from a book he borrowed from the local library, buying his first dummy in 1936. During the Second World War, he performed in an RAF variety show in India and had extra material written for him by the show's director, Wallie Okin. Worth warned his audience beforehand that he was not very good: according to "ITMA" impressionist Peter Cavanagh, this was the start of his apologetic and inept style.