John Peel - Margrave Of The Marshes

Through nigh-on forty years of laconic brilliance on Radio 1, a musical taste which defined a culture and his wildly popular Radio 4 show, Home Truths, John Peel reached out to an audience that was as diverse as his record collection. He was a genuinely great Briton, beloved by millions. Johns unique voice and sensibility were evident in everything he did, and nowhere is that more true than in these pages.

Margrave of the Marshes is the astonishing book John Peel began to write before his untimely death in October 2004, completed by the woman who knew him best, his wife Sheila. It is a unique and intimate portrait of a life, a marriage and a family which is every bit as extraordinary as the man himself - a fitting tribute to a bona fide legend.

It was Johns wish that this book should be dedicated to the Revd R. H. J. Brooke.

And we would like to dedicate this book to John, with our love.

We would like to thank Chris Berthoud, Lawrence Blackall, Big Bob, Billy Bragg, Richard Clark, Fiona Couper, John Darin, Paul Gambaccini, David Gedge, Peter Griffiths, Stewart Henderson, Claire Hillier, Tracey Holmyard, Alison Howe, Kid Jensen, Anita Kamath, Louise Kattenhorn, Andy Kershaw, Phil Knappett, Chris Lycett, Mike McCartney, The Misunderstood, Tom Robinson, Mike Sampey, Shurley and Clive Selwood, Feargal Sharkey, Bridget St John, Mike Stax, Dave Tate, Helen Walters, all the staff at Transworld and all those friends we have almost certainly forgotten to mention.

An extra special thank you to Frank, Alan, Gabs, John, Angela, Paul, Carmel, Zahra, Ashley, Hermeet and Archie.

Also thank you to Ryan Gilbey and Cat Ledger for helping to make this as enjoyable an experience as it could have been.

This has been for our family an unexpected and daunting launch into the literary world and in the circumstances somewhat unwelcome. Dad got as far as writing half of this book. Although we had the option of publishing this alone, we thought it important that his story should be finished, if only to make clear that he didnt meet our mother in the establishment in which he ended his half. He got as far as his adventures in America but stopped just short of his first radio appearance. There are no first-hand accounts of the seven years between that radio dbut and his meeting Mum, and frankly, even after that details can be a little shaky, but we pieced together what we could until Mums steadfast memory could be relied upon.

Various people had been on at Dad to write an autobiography and he had been promising to do so for the past thirty years. We even went so far as to have a room built for the purpose of his writing, which he promptly filled with records. Eventually, after the collapse of numerous pension schemes he realised it might be a good time to get started. At one point he wanted to begin with the line The junior officers exchanged glances. Mrs Bradshaw was on board again. Not sure why. Once hed developed a routine he was very productive, although cruelly all of his early progress was accidentally deleted one careless Monday morning. He wasnt terrifically good with computers. He would sit in his place at the kitchen table tapping away on his laptop under the watchful gaze of the Bill Shankly photo on the wall. To be honest, we were terrified when we learnt that Dad was writing a book. Its not that he made things up, but he had, in the past, exaggerated stories about us, misread situations and, well yes, he had also just made things up. Were fairly sure he hasnt done that here. We would like to have seen what, if he had got the chance, he would have concocted.

The title of the book had not, so far as we are aware, been decided upon. He enjoyed coming up with amusing if slightly puzzling titles: Hows Your Flow?, Wet Echo, Flying Cream Shots, Goatman Codds, If He Ever Hits Puberty, Buckskins and Buggery, The Wotters Won the Wace, A History of the Iodine Trade 18471902, An ABC of High-Jumping, The Questing of Stempel Garamond: How He Overcame the Gelks and Punished the Dwellers within the Well and Jesus Wasnt Made of Fish. We found the titles in his suitcase from Peru alongside a note to self: Lay in bed composing powerfully vulgar Wayne Rooney chants. Ive got a gem but this is not the forum for it, evidence that he wasnt concentrating fully on the task in hand. Contained within this notebook were also various quotes, reminders and observations:

Woke at three,

people being woken at five,

American shouting at 5.30,

Man farting so loudly in adjoining cabin,

Then silence,

Has there been a coup?

6.45 complete silence.

The major difference between their political situation and ours is that we are better more subtle perhaps at corruption and cronyism. There is no Peter Mandelson in Peruvian politics.

Incorporate book on Finnish sheds into autobiography.

We put off making any decisions regarding the book, as we had no idea what Dad had planned, if anything. We are fairly sure, though, that he would have approved of Mums silly drawings of the both of them being used as chapter headings. Dad always said they would be the first thing he would save in the event of a house fire, but then he said that about everything.

The research we have all done for the second part of the book has, of course, been strange, but also an opportunity to read Dads many newspaper and magazine articles. Some of these are really good, some fairly daft. Hidden away amongst all the obscene badges, German thrash magazines and old Radio 1 postcards, we found his old diaries that have been our staple diet over the last six months. These cover, sporadically, the years 1967 to 1983. They demonstrate just how hard Dad worked, traipsing up and down the country gigging and sleeping in motorway service areas. We came across a few details we would rather have missed, frankly, and plenty of stories about us growing up that we found very amusing but wont bore you with. Apparently, Thomas ate a mouse.

Later in the book you will come across Dads account of his close relationships with US presidents. The photographs to which he refers, the evidence of this bond, were not, as he believed, destroyed. His first wifes brother had been carrying the slides around for nearly forty years and offered to send them from America. When, after so long, he got them in his grubby hands, pleasure danced across his pretty face. He could hardly believe that he finally had proof that his stories were true.

There is no physical evidence that Dad isnt still with us here at home. The records in his to-listen-to pile are still stacked by the turntable, a smaller selection waiting to be allocated a place in a running order. The machinery of his long-established system is still in place, but unused. We dont know what to do with the piles of demo CDs that fill every corner. There could be another Elvis in there, we can hear him say. We all feel as guilty as Dad used to at the thought of getting rid of these. Obviously we cant continue his work, listening to these demos and promoting these bands, but we felt that we could at least try to complete this book.

We cant pretend that Margrave of the Marshes will be the read that Dad would have provided, though in plagiarising enough of his work hopefully his voice remains throughout. There are many stories that he didnt tell us enough times for us to remember, but we have tried to include all the things we think were important to him. We hope the effort Mum and ourselves have put into making this a worthy chronicle of his life has gone some way to showing how much he meant to us all.