Lavenham musician Peter Durrent looks back on six-decade career from performing to Elton John, meeting ABBA and getting a lift in Eric Morcambe’s Rolls-Royce
From playing the piano at Elton John’s birthday party, to writing musicals, to entertaining guests at one of Suffolk’s smartest hotels, Peter Durrent’s career has hit the right notes for the best part of 60 years.
His talent as a pianist and singer has seen him work with top stars, and spend his life doing something he loves.
He has been a member of the celebrated Pasadena Roof Orchestra, appeared in panto ... and along the way earned a cheeky nickname from Anita Dobson, aka EastEnders’ Angie Watts.
Working across the UK and abroad, from provincial theatres to glamorous foreign locations, has left him with a treasure trove of memories.
At the heart of it is decades of hard work and dedication to music – enjoying performing in venues including theatres, clubs, and hotels, as well as composing, and being a musical director.
He played piano for Helen Shapiro, toured with Diane Solomon, and even appeared in the 1980s soap Triangle.
There were also many moments that still raise a smile, like meeting ABBA, and getting a lift in Eric Morcambe’s Rolls-Royce.
Along the way he made friends like Leonard Pierce, who played Grandad in Only Fools and Horses, and Carmen Silvera – René’s wife Edith in ‘Allo, ‘Allo.
He also remembers watching nervously for flying beer bottles – or worse – while accompanying a drag queen who insisted on ribbing the East End gangsters in the audience.
Then there was the time he had to carry on playing interval piano in a theatre despite a mischievous Richard Beckinsale, who could barely play a note, sitting beside him joining in.
But the words Peter, now once again playing at Lavenham’s Swan Hotel, uses most often to describe his career are ‘great fun’.
“I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had a fabulous career and can’t complain about anything. I’ve done so many different things,” he said.
The Swan, where he previously worked for 20 years, is also where he met his wife Wendy – at a 1940s evening where she and friends were singing around the piano.
Essex-born Peter trained as a classical pianist until the age of 21. He also practised tirelessly until he was highly-skilled at reading music by sight.
But his first job when he left school involved a different kind of keyboard – he did an apprenticeship as a compositor (type setter) with the Ilford Recorder newspaper.
He left when the apprenticeship ended to try his luck with acting, singing and modelling.
Earlier, he had also been singing and performing in amateur productions and sung in a church choir.
“When I had finished all my piano exams I went and did a panto, as a singer.
“I used to do some adverts, and TV stuff as an extra in programmes like Softly, Softly, Z Cars and Clochmerle.
“Then I auditioned as a singer for Derek Taverner and went to Blackpool to do a summer season at the opera house with Billy Cotton and his band, and Max Bygraves.
“I started writing songs in the 1960s. Then I got to writing pieces for piano and orchestra.”
Sometimes his published compositions turn up in unexpected places ... like when while watching TV he suddenly realised a piece called Spring Jinx was in an advert for dishwasher tablets.
Not that he was complaining because he gets royalties whenever they are used.
Another early job was in Bristol, singing in the panto Sleeping Beauty starring Morecambe and Wise, who were already well on their way to being Britain’s best-loved comedy duo.
“Eric and Ernie were a great double act – two very different characters. They were playing the king and the joker. I got on really well with both of them.
“At the time I was going out with one of the dancers, called Sheila, and we both had auditions in London. Eric said I’ll take you to London, and we got in his Rolls- Royce and he drove us there.
“After that I did a summer season in Bournemouth and worked with Bruce Forsyth. I used to carry his tap shoes on for him.
“Another of the singers, Barry Peters, had a big interest in jazz. He and I formed a duo – I played the piano and we both sang.
“We did an audition and they wanted to put us in the northern clubs, but said you need to work on your act a lot more.
“Barry was married and couldn’t afford to take time out not earning, so we had to call it a day.”
Summer seasons as a pianist and singer followed, and his sight-reading skills also saw him in demand as a rehearsal pianist, including with Burt Bacharach.
“From that I got involved in a show called Dames at Sea as a rehearsal pianist. I got a call from Bill Kerr, who used to be in Hancock’s Half Hour, who had an audition for the show.
“He hadn’t got any music. We met in an alleyway at the back of the theatre and he did his dance routine so I could busk it.
“Then I got more involved in playing for auditions – so I was playing piano more than I was singing.
“I met a drummer called Don Lawson and we were approached by a drag act, Rogers and Starr, who were doing late night sessions at Hampstead Theatre Club. They were one of the best drag acts I’ve ever seen.
“We played for them and that was great fun and it used to get packed with people including stars like Kathy Kirby.
“Then in the 1970s I was asked to join the Pasadena Roof Orchestra as a pianist and to sing with a vocal trio. I was with them for three years.
“One of my first gigs with them was playing for Elton John’s birthday party.
“He lived in a large ground floor apartment in Chelsea, and the guests included Ringo Starr. We were playing the whole evening, and Elton John did come round to look at his piano being played.
“We played one evening at (our record company) CBS Studios to promote Abba’s new album, and met them as well, which was great.
“We went all over Europe and did a show with Petula Clarke. She was lovely.”
Also in the ’70s, Peter was musical director and pianist for The Vicar of Soho, starring James Bolam as the Rev Harold Davidson – better known as the Rector of Stiffkey.
The reverend was defrocked for scandalous conduct because of his work – and probably extra-curricular activities – with young women in London, and became known as the prostitutes’ padre.
For another pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, starring Jim Dale, he was booked as pianist. The producers were (comedian) Cyril Fletcher and his wife, Betty Astell.
“The first performance was on Boxing Day. The overture started, but the organist wasn’t playing the right notes. Betty looked puzzled, so she crept over to the organ and pulled the plug out.
“I was left playing solo piano. After the performance, it transpired that the organist had a drinking problem. He had consumed a bottle and a half of gin, and was consequently dismissed.”
Later he worked in London with another drag artist, Alan Haynes, who was Danny la Rue’s partner – they appeared together in pantomime – and had his own club in Soho.
“Danny used to come in and support him. Late at night they used to get quite a few East End gangsters coming in, and Alan used to insult them. I used to say be careful – I’ll be in line for a beer bottle.”
In the 1980s he got involved in producing shows for companies wanting lighthearted conference entertainment.
“One project took me to Mauritius, which was wonderful. Another was a Barbie Doll conference in St Tropez.
“I did several pantos including one with Anita Dobson, which also starred Tim Brooke-Taylor as the dame.”
He then confesses that his tight black trousers prompted Anita to nickname him sexy pants, “I was very slim then, he said.
He also co-wrote more than 20 musicals. One was performed in a private school where Queen guitarist Brian May’s daughter was a pupil. “We had quite a chat. He asked how long it took to write the score, and I said about six weeks ... he said it took him six months to write one song.”
In the 1960s he had worked with a West End star called Elizabeth Larner, who later played Ammonia in Up Pompeii.
“In the 1980s she got in touch saying she’d been asked to do a TV show called Triangle. I did two episodes of that playing the piano while she was singing.”
Peter first came to Lavenham in 1985, to visit friends. “They showed me round the village and we went into the Swan and I thought, they’ve got a nice Steinway piano.
“The manager said ‘would you like to play it?’ I did and he asked me to play there on Saturday evenings.” He still had work in London but said yes, and used to stay with his friends every weekend.
When the job eventually expanded to eight sessions a week he moved into a cottage in Little Cornard.
“Vera Lynn and her family used to come to the Swan for Sunday lunch in the 1990s. I believe her daughter lived in Suffolk,” he recalled.
It brought back memories because he had worked decades before on the Fol de Rols – a touring variety show – with Hughie Charles, who co-wrote Dame Vera’s most famous song, We’ll Meet Again.
The job lasted until 2005, then he played for several years at Hintlesham Hall, near Hadleigh, before returning to the Swan where he now plays on Sundays.
He has also worked with other musicians in Suffolk and devised and performed two shows with vocalists at the Quay Theatre in Sudbury – ‘We Love Broadway’, and ‘The Sound of his Music’, about Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein.
Now he also plays and sings once a week for care home residents at Chilton Croft, in Sudbury.
“I thoroughly enjoy it – I come home elated, I feel I’m doing some good.
“They sing along with me, with things like the Lambeth Walk, and I also include songs they’ll remember from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.”
Peter is currently going through his compositions with a view to recording them all.
“I can’t believe how much music I’ve written over the years,” he said.
