The John Peel record collection

[aspwatterson]

Been thinking a lot about JP recently considering I am in Peru soon. I wonder if there's any mention of him in Cusco, a memorial plaque or summat?


This is from Wiki :

"Peel died suddenly at the age of 65 from a heart attack on 25 October 2004, on a working holiday in the Inca city of Cusco in Peru. Shortly after the announcement of his death, tributes began to arrive from fans and supporters both in and out of public life. On 26 October 2004 BBC Radio 1 cleared its schedules to broadcast a day of tributes. London's Evening Standard boards that afternoon read "the day the music died".

Peel had often spoken wryly of his eventual death. He once said on the show Room 101, "I've always imagined I'd die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, 'He would have wanted to go that way.' Well, I want them to know that I wouldn't." At one point, he said that if he died before his producer John Walters, he wanted the latter to play Roy Harper's "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease". Walters having died in 2001, it was left to Andy Kershaw to end his tribute programme to Peel on BBC Radio 3 with the song. Peel's stand-in on his Radio 1 slot, Rob da Bank, also played the song at the start of the final show before his funeral. Another time, Peel said he would like to be remembered with a gospel song. He stated that the final record he would play would be the Rev C. L. Franklin's sermon "Dry Bones in The Valley".

On his Home Truths BBC radio show John once commented about his own death: "I definitely want to be buried, although not yet. I'm 61 on Wednesday—just a working day for me, I'm afraid—so actually I should have a mile or two left in me, but I do want the children to be able to stand solemnly at my graveside and think lovely thoughts along the lines of 'Get out of that one, you swine', which they won't be able to do if I've been cremated. I think I want 'Teenage kicks, so hard to beat' on my gravestone and every night at dusk the trumpeters of the 5th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry to play Misty in Roots' 'Mankind' over the grave. Lovely."

Peel's funeral, on 12 November 2004, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was attended by over a thousand people, including many of the artists he had championed. Eulogies were read by his brother, Alan Ravenscroft, and DJ Paul Gambaccini. The service ended with clips of him talking about his life and his coffin was carried out to the accompaniment of his favourite song, The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks". Peel had written that, apart from his name, all he wanted on his gravestone were the words, "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat", from the lyrics of "Teenage Kicks". A headstone engraved in accordance with his wishes was placed at his grave in 2008. Peel is buried at St Andrew's Church, in the village of Great Finborough, Suffolk.
Life in music"


http://johnosbornepoet.blogspot.co.uk/

Happy cricketing in heavenly Peruvian mountains!

Andi

[aspwatterson]

http://www.johnpeelarchive.com/singl....html?letter=B


Andy