The census is only a record of where a person was on the given days at a given time.
You say he was still alive until 1945
so you have a few more options:
was he at work or working away when the census happened
was he visiting someone when the census happened (in or out of the parish)
(do a random name check on the census)
If he still doesn't show up check the spelling of similar men - the person writing would probably spell the name as it sounded to them ie man, mann, men, Menn, minn, monn.
with some dialects the vowels came sound different
and all else fails check the north of england
hope that helps