My friend Peter Jerrome, who has died aged 87, was a teacher and theologian, and a quiet creator of poetry and prose. He was also a leading figure in the Petworth Society, and published many works of local history about his home town of Petworth, West Sussex, and the surrounding area.
The Petworth Society was formed in 1974, at a time of concerns about an increase in traffic in the town’s narrow historic streets. It now seeks to provide a distinctive voice for the town that reflects tradition and continuity while evolving as change takes place. Peter at first took on the role of guiding the organisation as it found its feet, and later served as its chairman until 2020.
In the mid-70s, in collaboration with Jonathan Newdick, he started research into local history and created the Window Press, which has published 30 books on significant people and events relating to Petworth and its environs. Peter also served as editor of the Petworth Society magazine, for about 190 issues. In 1998 he was appointed MBE for services to the Petworth Society.
Peter was born in Gidea Park, Essex, to Sidney Jerrome, a vacuum cleaner sales manager, and Amy (nee Allison), a secretary, and grew up in west London. During the second world war, he lived in rural Petworth, where his grandfather was foreman at the Leconfield estate. Back in London after the war, he went to Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith, and developed a passion for Queen’s Park Rangers.
In 1951 Peter’s family purchased a grocery shop in Petworth, and Peter went to Midhurst grammar school, after which he did his national service in the intelligence service, training as a Russian linguist. Once demobbed, he studied theology at Cambridge University before moving on to University College London for a postgraduate degree, funding his studies by teaching English at his old school in Midhurst.
His father’s death in 1966 started Peter’s gradual return to Petworth – though he commuted to the University of Birmingham, where he was a lecturer in biblical studies in 1967-68, and to teach at St Agnes and St Michael’s school in East Grinstead. In the 1970s, while still contributing biblical papers, he took over the running of the shop.
His 2015 reminiscence Elegy for a Small Shop recalled this as “a solitary vocation. A shop invites such cold camaraderie. A shop’s about people rather than company. There is a tangible quiet that is alien to the spirit of a private house. Perhaps it’s that you expect a house to be a private place, whereas an empty shop is almost a cry of pain.”
Peter could be enigmatic. Mildly spoken and instinctively shy, he was nonetheless a leader. He disliked gossip, driving and music, spoke Russian, Greek and Spanish fluently and was an insatiable reader. In 2016, a little light was thrown by his autobiography, Petworth – Most of the Time.
His wife, Marian Gane (nee Sadler), whom he married in 1994, predeceased him. Peter is survived by four stepsons from Marian’s previous marriage, and by his younger sister, Jill.
