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British military bandmaster and composer, renowned as the 'British March King' for his iconic military marches.Frederick Joseph Ricketts, composing under the pseudonym Kenneth J. Alford due to British Army regulations of the time, served as a Bandmaster in the Royal Marines Light Infantry for over 30 years. He is celebrated globally for composing some of the most famous and enduring British military marches.

• He adopted the pseudonym 'Kenneth J. Alford' because British Army regulations at the time actively discouraged career soldiers, especially bandmasters, from pursuing outside interests like publishing music commercially. Using a pen name allowed him to circumvent this restriction.
• His most famous march, 'Colonel Bogey', composed in 1914, achieved worldwide fame. Its distinctive opening phrase, based on a descending minor third interval whistled by a golfer (a 'bogey' being a golf term), became a cultural phenomenon, especially after being featured in the 1957 film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' (though with a different counter-march composed by Malcolm Arnold).
• Despite his immense popularity as a march composer, Alford/Ricketts never achieved significant promotion within the Royal Marines beyond the rank of Bandmaster (equivalent to Warrant Officer). He died relatively young at age 64 in Reigate, Surrey, while still serving as the Principal Director of Music for the Royal Marines, shortly after the end of World War II in Europe.