I first met Peter when he joined St Stephen’s Church Choir in Chatham, a choir, run by the inspiring Keith Miller, comprising over 30 boys and 20 men. Peter was a marvellous addition to that choir, with his fine counter-tenor voice and his musicianship. And as well as loving choral music Peter had a great knowledge and love of the wider world of music, and many were the visits to proms and concerts on the south bank.

My recall of dates and times is terrible but I’m pretty sure this first meeting was in the early 1960s when I was in my late teens. How I have always envied Peter his amazing ability to recall these things. It became almost a routine that Peter, having described some event in incredible detail, would add with a twinkle, ‘Oh, and it was drizzling slightly at the time’.

That meeting was the start of a wonderful friendship for me, and so many people here will have their own story of how their lives were enriched by meeting him.

One personal happy memory from those early years comes from a bright and snowy Boxing Day (it did snow in those days). Peter phoned at about 10am. My parents had to get me up (no cordless phones then!) and Peter suggested he call for me and we walk cross country to the Robin Hood pub, a few miles away. It was a lovely bright day and we got to the pub and had warming whisky-macs. Such memories are magic, aren’t they? And they live with you.

Peter was an only child, born in Borstal, which is in fact a village near Rochester in Kent, but its name has become synonymous with one of Her Majesty’s institutions there. This fact gave him a lot of amusement, particularly when he joined the RAF for his national service and they asked him his place of birth. We’re not sure who they thought they’d got!

To cover, too briefly really, his early years, his musical life started as a boy when he joined the choir of St Mary’s Church in Chatham. Art, too, was in his blood and he went to Art College in Rochester. This was followed by national service and after this, possibly after his father said it was time to ‘get a proper job’, he followed in his footsteps and joined the Dickinson Robinson Group in Rochester. It was after national service, too, that he joined St Stephen’s Choir, mentioned earlier.

Now for something exciting and romantic! He met Pam at the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 1964. They had both gone to the Festival alone and both had tickets for the first performance of Britten’s Curlew River. This was taking place in Orford Church rather than in Aldeburgh so the audience was taken there in two coaches. It was pouring with rain and there was a power cut at Orford, and everyone had to wait for the power to return before the performance could begin, including the composer, pacing up and down. Afterwards there was only one coach to take everyone back. Pam was on it and rather taken by this nice young man who was helping lots of old ladies on to the coach, to the point where she thought, ‘Why doesn’t he come and sit down instead of being so gallant?’ He did come and sit, in the seat in front of her, and they chatted all the way home, Peter getting a crick in his neck! So the friendship began. They swapped addresses just in time before leaving Aldeburgh, Pam going back to Wembley and Peter to Rochester, but due to a long postal strike there was little contact - no mobile phones then, and no phone at Pam’s house.

But there was some contact because a month later they got tickets for the first London performance of Curlew River at Southwark Cathedral. They had arranged to meet under the clock at Charing Cross (where else?) and Pam was there in good time. But poor Peter. There was some problem in Charing Cross Station and Peter’s train was held up outside the station. No getting out. No mobiles (this is a good advert for their usefulness). No way of letting Pam know he was there. This went on for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Pam thinking, ‘Is he coming? Am I wasting my time?’ Well, of course we know she wasn’t. Pam did wait. Peter did get there. And they made the concert, even if the meal before it had to go.

The relationship grew over the next couple of years, nearly all contact being by letter - how much more romantic is that! - and it was during this time that Peter decided it would be right for him to join the Catholic Church. It all blossomed into their marriage on 10th September 1966 at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Wembley.

They returned to live in Borstal where, in 1968, Katherine was born, and then moved to Walderslade on the outskirts of Chatham, where, in 1972, Elizabeth was born.

Like a diamond, there are many facets to this dear man, so maybe rather than recite a chronological list of events we should consider these facets as the things that made the man and his life.

So... Peter the Musician

Another outcome of Peter joining St Stephen’s Choir, and finding himself amongst lovers of church music, was the idea of starting a small group of singers to do recitals. Tony Murphy, down from Yorkshire for a teaching post, had joined the choir in 1965 and was not only keen on the idea but willing and very able to conduct such a group. This became The Tudor Consort of Rochester, which gave its first recital in 1967. Peter fell into the role of secretary. He was brilliant at liaising with the churches we performed in; he had great presence and diplomacy in dealing with people from all walks of life. He also came up with many good ideas about venues, in particular, due to his catholic connections, the recitals that we did every Lent and Christmas for many years at The Friars, a Carmelite monastery in Aylesford near Maidstone.

(A quick aside here. In one of our Christmas recitals at The Friars we sang the early Spanish carol Riu, riu chiu and to everyone’s surprise it was followed by a ripple of applause from the back of the chapel. Afterwards we heard that it came from a party of Spanish nuns who were staying there and were so thrilled to hear something in their native tongue. These are shared memories that will always bring Peter to mind.)

Peter and Pam moved to Hemel Hempstead in 1979 when Peter started work with John Dickinson and they quickly got involved with church life. Father Spencer died at the end of that year, and before Easter in 1980 Father Lynch came to see Peter and said he didn’t feel he could cope with the singing of the Exsultet. Peter jumped at the chance to do it and this amazingly became a tradition and he sang it for the next 30 years, much to the delight of many congregations!

Peter so loved The Tudor Consort that for a while he had continued to travel down to the Medway Towns for rehearsals, but the vicissitudes of travel finally beat him. Peter Garner, a colleague at work, suggested Peter came along to the Aeolian Singers, which he did, changing, because this was a large choir, to the baritone line. This choir gave Peter tremendous musical satisfaction, particularly due to the outstanding leadership of their conductor Ian Butler, and his involvement led to his being Chairman of the choir for 30 years until he left a year after Ian’s untimely death in 1995.

From the Aeolian Singers the much smaller group Quodlibet was formed in 1982 and Peter joined them in 1983, performing a wide range of music, from early church music to the Beatles. They sang until they disbanded in the late 1990s, and had a final concert in Ireland in 2000 when they went to Ballyhar for a reunion.

About the time Quodlibet stopped performing, Peter had been to a concert by the St Albans Chamber Choir and was very impressed. He joined, and once again became very involved in the group and became Chairman. As in The Tudor Consort he was a great ideas man for venues and it was he who instigated and organized, among other things, all the Chamber Choir concerts at London Colney Pastoral Centre, with its acoustically superb chapel.

Peter didn’t, of course, suffer fools gladly or, indeed, quietly, and I remember a concert many years ago that a group of us went to in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was given by The Early Music Consort of London directed by David Munrow and was a concert of early church music, the artists giving it an ecclesiastical atmosphere by processing in and out to plainsong. This plainsong was clearly part of the programme, but when they started to recess off the platform a chap two rows in front of us started to applaud. Peter lost his cool at this point, leant across and tried to biff the chap with his rolled-up programme crying ‘Shhhh’! It’s probably fortunate that he was out of reach, but it’s a memory that will live with me for ever. I can still see Peter going ‘Tchh’ afterwards!

We mustn’t forget Peter the Railwayman

He had been keen on steam railways since he was a lad, from train spotting as a boy to visiting famous railways as a man. Michael Portillo would have been proud of him! The family had a few holidays in Somerset when the girls were growing up, the attraction of the steam railway being a great incentive to choose that area. The climax of his passion came when, as a 60th birthday treat, Pam arranged for him to go on a two-day driver’s course at West Somerset Railway in October 1996. The whole family went down to Minehead for the weekend and were specially allowed to travel on the train (passengers were not normally allowed unless a professional was driving). So Peter drove them from Minehead to Blue Anchor. Of course, Peter loved painting these steam trains, so it naturally leads us on to

Peter the Painter

Sometime after moving to Hemel he took up watercolour painting again which was a wonderfully renewing pastime. He painted while listening to great music and would become completely lost in time, so that when Pam popped her head round the door to say a meal was ready - if she could be heard above the volume of the music - he would be completely taken by surprise.

His output was quite prolific. He didn’t just paint steam trains - of which he did many for his grandchildren of course; he enjoyed painting buildings and many of the places they visited, in this country and in Italy. He painted commissions for people who wanted presents, one for a raffle for the Catenians, and one, which was auctioned, of the church stained glass window.

This passion of Peter’s was a shared thing too. Over the past 15 years or so he visited St Cuthbert Mayne School for two days every year where he would spend time with Year 6 children, inspiring them to venture into art. These days are remembered with much affection by the pupils involved, and they would often come up to him, years after they left school, and say, ‘Ooh Mr Moore, we so loved it when you came to school and did art with us’.

The school roses also caught his eye and, feeling they looked a bit neglected, he took to caring for them over the years, and this led to his becoming, really, an honorary staff member. This leads us serenely on to


Peter the Churchman
as, loving his gardening, he cared for the church garden here for many years. He was also a reader and was responsible for the counting and banking of the collections. In February 2010 he joined the Catenians. This is a world-wide association of Catholic men whose keywords are Brotherly Love. Members become part of a community offering lifelong support and friendship and have a wide circle of Catholic friends who share similar values. It is wonderful that there are over 30 of Peter’s fellow Catenians with us today.

Over-riding this amazingly productive and caring life is, of course,

Peter the Family Man

We’ve heard how Peter and Pam met, and when Katherine and Elizabeth were born. He was so proud of his daughters, and he warmly welcomed his sons-in-law, Patrick and Jean-Paul, into the family.

And, of course, he adored his grandchildren. He was so proud of them all, and interested in everything they did.

Katherine and Patrick had four children before they immigrated to Perth in Western Australia ten years ago.

Alex is 22 and was his first grandson, and the apple of his eye. They loved each other and being in each other’s company; they loved walking and they loved railways.

Ellie is 20 and, like her grandpa, shows great interest in art. She is proud of her independence and loves travel, a fact exemplified by the fact that she is unable to be with us today because she is studying in South Korea and her student visa wouldn’t allow her to return there if she left.

Sam is 17 and personifies Peter’s love of cricket and, indeed, has a possible career with Australian Cricket (but Grandpa says, ‘don’t forget you were born in England’!).

Tom at 14 is extremely athletic and plays Australian Rules football (I must ask him what that is!).
Of course, living nearby, he was especially close to Elizabeth and Jean-Paul’s girls.

Isabella was born in 2002. He so loved her caring nature and her thoughtfulness. She was very precious to him and, as you will see on the last page of the service booklet, he was equally precious to her.

And how he loved Francesca too, who was born in 2006. She also was very loving, and enjoyed snuggling up and reading books together, and making him cakes.

Sharing this family and this life with him was, of course, his beloved Pam. It is a poignant fact that their anniversary of 50 years of marriage coincided with Peter’s illness, and rather than the celebration they had planned for the day, they had a blessing together in hospital. But they did reach their 50 years and the fact of their life together is there for all to see, and to have known them both has been one of life’s blessings.

When I heard that Peter had died it sent me, as these things do, into a state of sadness and reminiscence. I went out walking with the dog, thinking about him, and the main feeling I had was that I had lost a rock of a friend. A bit later I said to myself, ‘Well, of course he was a rock of a friend. You’re a bit slow. His name was Peter, wasn’t it?’

And so, dear Peter, you were: a rock of a friend, a rock of a grandfather, a rock of a father and a rock of a husband.

We are glad you were part of our lives, and the joy of knowing you will always be with us. We are a bit jealous that God has taken you, but we do know that eventually we will share with you in His fantastic cosmic Kingdom.