Peter Parker

Peter David Parker

13th November 1928 – 23rd September 2018

Peter Parker was a Vice-President of the Society.  He was the son of Stanley Parker, Secretary and Treasurer to the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and enthusiast and a walking encyclopaedia about all things Gilbert and Sullivan.

In his Will, he kindly left us a bequest which, in accordance with his known wishes, we are using to promote and preserve our archive and to make possible a new website for the Society.  Peter had been a founding member of SavoyNet, the internet discussion group on all things G&S and was enthusiastic about our Society being a part of the digital world.  We dedicate out website to him with our thanks and very fond memories.

 

Here is some information about Peter’s life taken from our obituary to him in the Spring 2019 edition of  Gilbert & Sullivan News.
 

Peter went to Ardingly College, following in his father’s footsteps. On leaving school he started work at GEC’s London office in Kingsway, where he worked in the lighting department, which specialised in stage, fountain and sign lighting. Following World War 2 there were plenty of fountains that needed work and in 1950, Peter was part of a team that lit The Festival of Britain, which included lighting an underwater feature. Peter recounted many stories from this time, one being of him working late at night, standing in waders, immersed in cold water and looking for leaks!

Peter later moved to fluorescent tubing, which was a growth area, and he was involved in designing tubes for a variety of uses that included lighting aircraft and trains. Peter’s office subsequently moved to Wembley and became Osram-GEC, but the commute and GEC’s management style were not to Peter’s liking and at different times he considered leaving. For this reason he bought an electronics shop called J.T. Filmer that sold microchips and a variety of electronic equipment, in readiness for his departure from GEC.
 
In 1973, he moved into the flat above the shop in Dartford. Peter was finally made redundant from GEC in 1981 and, while he had the shop to fall back on, he received an offer that was too good to turn down, from Mechanical Handling. The firm was looking for an experienced manager, a position that Peter occupied for eight years. One of his favourite projects there was to design a phosphor dot ink jet printer for the Royal Mail. When Peter moved from the flat over the J.T. Filmer shop, he bought a penthouse flat in Bexhill, a town he had come to love while visiting his cousin Lorna Lucas and her husband Reg.

Peter was a talented electrical engineer and, through his work, he became a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Lightmongers and received the Freedom of the City of London. Following his retirement in 1994 Peter spent even greater amounts of time on his hobbies of video and film editing, PCs and just about anything electronic. He could also devote more time to Gilbert & Sullivan activities and was an active  member of the Society as well as that of the Sir Arthur Sullivan and the W.S. Gilbert Societies plus an active member of SavoyNet.

 
For some years Peter’s sizeable dining table was used to prepare the mailing of Gilbert & Sullivan News, such occasions being referred to as ‘stuffing parties’. Peter really enjoyed these events and would dig out a rare recording or an old video for the helpers to watch while carrying out the work. Peter was also a regular at the Buxton International Gilbert and Sullivan Festivals which he attended every year until 2012.  As a keen SavoyNetters Peter loved to get involved with their annual production, which was produced in a week. Peter would record rehearsals, which the director found very helpful, as it was possible to identify parts of the shows that needed to be worked on. He was an important part of the group, and in the early days he recorded the final productions, thus creating a record of the Festivals that would otherwise not exist today.
 
Peter also videoed the interviews that Melvyn Tarran undertook with former D’Oyly Carte artists, again ensuring that those memories and stories are recorded for posterity. He was an excellent committee man and worked hard to help the various societies he was involved with.  He was very generous with this time and a true gentleman in every sense.
 

We dedicate a meeting each year in October to his memory.