Peter G Bailey

One of five children, Peter Bailey was born in London of London parents and London grand-parents, but firmly disclaims being a Londoner himself. Most of his life has been spent well outside the defining sound of Bow Bells and his first venture from the grime of the smog-ridden capital, and the most influential, was his wartime evacuation to a small village in North Devon, a clean county of unrestrained tolerance, apple orchards, grazing cows. Any cloying nostalgia for a return to grimy, battered London passed unnoticed.

Missing the worst wartime bombing blitzes in London, he suffered the full horror of the V1 and V2 raids when he returned in the closing stages of the war.

After a fragmented state school education Peter Bailey tried various jobs before enlisting in the Fleet Air Arm.

From an early age he wanted to write, but quickly realised that a lack of life experience was a considerable handicap. His early efforts at writing English Civil War romances and gory Westerns persuaded him that he ought to travel.

The Royal Navy took him to many parts of the world and to many countries he might never have visited, even now. It also allowed him to play rugby and cricket and acquire new skills such as learning to sail racing dinghies, offshore yachts, skiing, rock and mountain climbing, gliding while becoming the famed well-rounded naval officer.

He did not begin writing again seriously until a Far East cruise gave him the opportunity to begin ‘Fortune’s Bastard’, a fictional novel of carrier life that contained more than a trace of his growing disenchantment with the way promotion to the higher ranks of the navy was deliberately biased in favour of seaman specialist officers.

He left the navy to qualify as a barrister and to take up politics with the intention of standing for parliament.

To augment a small retirement grant and pension, Peter Bailey brought a small tourist hotel with the intention of running it during the summer season and spending the winter reading law at Bristol University. Nine years later he had not completed the law course nor made a success of his business. Various national and local factors conspired to effectively throttle both projects