Peter Birkett – LaA 43-52

Submitted by David Arnold

I first met Peter Birkett eighty years ago, as we started in the Lower Fourth in the Michaelmas Term of 1944, and we remained friends ever afterwards. In our last year at Housie he was the Senior Grecian, and after National Service in the gunners and three years at university, he set out for what was then Tanganyika with his wife Ursula, whom he had met while they were both at Cambridge, intending to spend his working life in the colonial service. But what Harold Macmillan memorably described as a ‘wind of change’ was blowing through Africa, and after a couple of years he was back in England looking for a new job.

We happened to live near each other and saw quite a lot of each other, and each other’s families, for some time. Eventually he became one of that small group of her majesty’s inspectors of taxes who only had three or four cases a year, dealing with large businesses which were avoiding or evading paying taxes (I could never remember which was illegal and which simply immoral) and saving us tens of millions of pounds as he brought a case to conclusion. In retirement, much of which was spent dry stone walling, he enjoyed explaining to the revenue where they had made a mistake in his own tax.

One of my fond memories our last year at Housie was when the school was visited by the radio programme Down Your Way. Two people were interviewed and invited to choose a piece of music. One of the interviewees was the second Master, ‘Teddy’ Edwards, who chose Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Next was Peter whose choice was a song whose lyrics went something like this: ‘There’s a handout on Panhandle Hill, by a hobo named Vanderbilt Morgan McGill. His partner, Jim Doyle, stubbed his toe and struck oil on the side of old Panhandle Hill. Come away boys and fly with me, come George, Jack and Bill, come get your fill. They’re handing out chewing gum, chuck sirloin and Bay Rum to each bum on Panhandle Hill.’ It was heard all over the country. The then Head Master, Henry Lael Oswald Flecker, disapproved.

Ursula survives him. She, of course, will miss him. So will I.