Peter Maguire

Lower Broughton, Salford, England, where I passed my childhood in the house of my maternal grandparents.

My conventional education was a disaster area, I can claim this not to be entirely my own fault, but the familial circumstances I lived with. Reaching my teens my sole ambition was to get away as soon as it was possible to do so. I joined the RAF three days after my sixteenth birthday.

In the RAF I became aware for the first time of the reality of the English class system. It also brought me into contact with groups and individuals far removed from my origins. There were many good times dressed in the blue. Also, some bad times. However, I will be eternally grateful that it was as a serving member of Her Majesties Forces my vision widened immeasurably.

Leaving the RAF, I have led a varied path. To call it a career would be a misnomer.

Professional musician
Making dodgy portable battery driven radios on behalf of a dodgy gentleman.
Worked in several well known London coffee bars
Worked in a shambolic musical instrument shop
Bookseller
In the employ  of the Late Captain Bob
General Manager of a University bookshop
Publishing
Studied Chinese
Expert on The Stamps and Postal History of China
Journalist
Web Project developer

And much serial entrepreneurship in between.

Jazz has been a constant passion and remains so. Valve Trombone. Some piano and saxophone.

Many regrets but never about my children and their achievements. Two beautiful, polyglot, musical, and talented granddaughters

Radio-BBC

Missionary in Peking - The Letters of Ethel Wilding
The Northern Drift. Poetry

Face To Face Interview. BBC Radio Leeds

Books

China

The Provincial Surcharges of China
The Stamps of The Chinese Treaty Ports

Fiction

Journey Around The Whole Island of Herttach
Singers
Korngroot
The Yak Posts of Dogar

Food

Great British Puddings

Painting

Yorkshire Artists. Leeds City Art Gallery. One canvas hung.

Jazz

THE JAZZTETTE. The Picadilly Radio Sessions. (JT-02)
THE JAZZTETTE. Live at HJC. (JT-06)
ALBERT DELCHAMBRE. S'EN DESSOUS DESUS. (Franc Amour FC-064)
Willy VANDE WALLE Quartet "MIDNIGHT" (B.SHARP CDS 074)
THE GROOVERS. Paul Dubois et al.