One of Peter’s most significant memories was being at a friend’s house in Seaview in September 1939, listening to Neville Chamberlain’s announcement that we were at war with Germany. He was 13 at the time and a few days later went off to begin his first term at Bradfield. As a Senior he’d go into Theale in the afternoons after class to work in an ammunition factory.
When he left Bradfield in April 1944 the war was still on and he immediately joined the RAF, becoming a meteorologist. He did his training in London, in his own words: “Dodging the flying bombs but finding time to go to the Proms most evenings.” He was stationed for a time in Brawdy, Wales, and spent the last 18 months of his service in Germany.
He had always assumed that he would join the family firm, a cork business, and when he left the RAF in 1948, he did indeed begin working at Avern and Bucknall, but left after just a few years and, in 1952, became the manager of a sports car racing team called The Monkey Stable. They had considerable success and he wrote the foreword to a book that was published about them in 2015.
The Monkey Stable broke up in 1954 and Peter went to work at Ambassador Motorcycles in Ascot before moving to Triumph car dealer Puttocks of Guildford, becoming Managing Director after just a few months. He was with Puttocks until 1978 and the following year bought Optima Ltd., makers of picnic hampers. In 1988 he sold the company and retired.
Peter’s passion was always classical music, particularly opera, but of all the things that people tell my sisters and I about him, his sense of humour has to be one of the most commonly mentioned. He was married to Susan for more than fifty years and is survived by his children Benjamin (E 84-89), Rebecca (E 88-90) and Victoria. He also has four grandchildren, two of whom, Christina (M 15-20) and Arabella Cuming (M 18-21), are also Old Bradfieldians.
Ben Avern (E 84-89)
