John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE (30 August, 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was a British disc jockey, radio presenter, and journalist.

Early life

Peel was born in Heswall in the Wirral, near Liverpool, the son of an upper middle class cotton merchant, and educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School. His housemaster, R. H. J. Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive", wrote on one of his school reports:

Related Topics:
Heswall - Wirral - Liverpool - Upper middle class - Cotton - Merchant - Shrewsbury School

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Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays.

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After finishing his National Service in 1959 in the Royal Artillery as a B2 Radar Operator, he worked as a mill operative in Rochdale. In 1960, he went to the United States and first worked for WRR Radio in Dallas, Texas. While there he attended the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before Oswald's assassination. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City using the name John Ravencroft and KMEN in San Bernardino, California.

Related Topics:
National Service - 1959 - Royal Artillery - Radar - Rochdale - 1960 - United States - WRR - Dallas - Texas - Lee Harvey Oswald - Oklahoma City - San Bernardino, California

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I had been working on radio in America since 1961, initially Dallas, Texas; then I got into it full time as a Beatle expert in Oklahoma City in '64/66. I was in California for a year and half in San Bernadino, came back here in '67 and was by and large unemployable at the time. I hadn't anything to come home to. Just luck really, being in the right place at the right time, music lovers might argue the wrong place at the wrong time.

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In 1965, he started working as a computer programmer.

Related Topics:
1965 - Computer programmer

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