A call on 12 December 2019 to Ken Arnoldi from Peter’s son Nick brought the sad news that Peter had died, just four months after his wife Ursula.
Peter joined HMSO in 1962 and remained for the next 23 years. In his own words: ‘I was teaching and finding that teaching was not for me, after five years I was desperate to find another direction. A friend found an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph for a post in HMSO, (a government department I had barely heard of), the post was described as ‘leading illustrator’ a title that I found interesting as I was freelancing as a book illustrator during evenings and weekends to make ends meet whilst feeling trapped in a very poorly paid profession.’
‘I applied and was offered an interview, it was then that I first met John Westwood, I felt that the interview, from my side, went very badly as I had no experience of typography and it seemed that printing was the main requirement of the post, at least I had a full folio of illustrations and cover designs to show. I left the meeting a little downhearted and was more than delighted to receive a positive reply a few days later, JW must have seen something in my folio that impressed him and it changed the course of my life.’
Philip Marriage adds: It was his time in the Atlantic House Studio that will be best remembered by those of us who worked with Peter: for his creativeness in designing over four hundred posters for the V&A (for which he was awarded the British Poster Design Award in 1965); for his meticulous penmanship when creating line illustrations; and for his refinement of the suite of Royal Arms (originally designed by Reynolds Stone) which are still in daily use today on official publications.
Peter had a natural authority and took a leading part in the negotiations which led to a team-structure and career path for studio staff. When the studio was dispersed to Norwich in 1978 he remained in London heading the small team there until his early retirement in 1985.
Since we learnt of Peter’s death there have been many tributes. Nodge Carnegie remembers him as ‘more than a colleague . . . who did me many good turns’. Tony Garrett: ‘Peter was so funny and so kind to a callow young designer’. John Hughes: ‘. . . a man who I consider to be one of just a very few who have been a big influence on my life’. Vera Brice: ‘He stands out as being the designer par excellence for the V&A and very much his own man’. John Saville: ‘I count myself lucky to have known and worked with Peter.’
Finally, Peter had a whimsical sense of humour remembered by all. He wrote to me “We are getting older, the seventies were a doddle compared to the eighties. I am still an avid photographer but rather limited in subject matter, all the local flowers hide when they see me coming!
He was special and all of us who knew him have lost a special friend.