As a person Peter was kindly and thoughtful, and avoided the limelight. I was surprised to discover recently that his family did not know he was an ex Scottish chess champion.
It is less well known that Peter was British Boys champion in 1963. Peter's first championship win came in 1965 at the tender age of nineteen. That was before even my time in chess, but I remember the second time in 1973 because I had travelled from being on holiday with my parents, to watch the last round. Unfortunately I had miscalculated and arrived on the day of the lightning which had just finished and SCA President Walter Munn was putting the last boards and sets in his car. He told me Peter had won the Championship by a point.
These old championship tournament reports are on the website and are very interesting, especially for senior players.
It seems that I wasn't the only one who had miscalculated as the last round in 1973 had been scheduled at a different time and some players including Peter had been caught out; he had turned up just before the hour ran out and managed to win the decisive game despite having only an hour of the two and a half available.
https://www.chessscotland.com/champions/...champions/
Peter was a close friend of longtime organiser and arbiter Ted Fitzjames and also a work colleague at Howdens (wind energy, where I think he started his career). Ted started my old Howden Chess Club, where Peter played for a good few years. His other long work associations that I know of were with Garrad Hassan (a leading energy consultancy) and later Strathclyde University where he doubled up on his time teaching and mentoring PhD students in the new ways of wind energy, while somehow fitting in writing two editions of his (as Craig says) seminal work.
Chesswise, I managed two hard-fought wins against my creative former club-mate, and two draws of which I was quite proud. Mostly however he won decisively. When he had activity, he seemed to rapidly recognize the hidden possibilities and come into his own.
He was also my Glorney cup manager for at least four years in the 70s. He was always helpful and encouraging to we juniors. At one of these events we learned that he had (perhaps prophetically) brought a boomerang with him. This may have been because he had come straight from a wind energy conference; we understood he would be arriving a day late, just in time for the chess. On the way down I and the other players were in a train carriage that had stopped in a station somewhere in England, and another train was stopped next to us on the next platform. It was greatly amusing to see Peter looking at us from the other carriage - traveling in the opposite direction! Just as well we were behaving.
Sometimes he would relate a key issue of his current wind energy project, perhaps with the aid of salt cellars and cutlery and even the napkin, and I would try to (sort of) follow. While I was visiting him in hospital he took a call from an old work colleague who was anticipating meeting him at a conference. Peter explained he would be unable to attend. I didn't know the conference was about multi-rotor systems. Peter had told me before that this was an idea he had long advocated, which had long ago been shelved as impractical but which to his evident excitement was now making a comeback due the latest theoretical developments, of which some were down to him. Not that he told me this last part!
Philosophical and practical as he was near the end, he must have been frustrated to miss hearing about these conference proceedings by a couple of days.
For anyone with access to LinkedIn there is a lovely obituary there (search for eg Garrad and Jamieson) and a very appreciative thread underneath, from what seems to comprise the great and the good in wind energy.
As well as to his family and friends, Peter's departure is a great loss to a number of spheres in which he contributed his best.
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It is less well known that Peter was British Boys champion in 1963. Peter's first championship win came in 1965 at the tender age of nineteen. That was before even my time in chess, but I remember the second time in 1973 because I had travelled from being on holiday with my parents, to watch the last round. Unfortunately I had miscalculated and arrived on the day of the lightning which had just finished and SCA President Walter Munn was putting the last boards and sets in his car. He told me Peter had won the Championship by a point.
These old championship tournament reports are on the website and are very interesting, especially for senior players.
It seems that I wasn't the only one who had miscalculated as the last round in 1973 had been scheduled at a different time and some players including Peter had been caught out; he had turned up just before the hour ran out and managed to win the decisive game despite having only an hour of the two and a half available.
https://www.chessscotland.com/champions/...champions/
Peter was a close friend of longtime organiser and arbiter Ted Fitzjames and also a work colleague at Howdens (wind energy, where I think he started his career). Ted started my old Howden Chess Club, where Peter played for a good few years. His other long work associations that I know of were with Garrad Hassan (a leading energy consultancy) and later Strathclyde University where he doubled up on his time teaching and mentoring PhD students in the new ways of wind energy, while somehow fitting in writing two editions of his (as Craig says) seminal work.
Chesswise, I managed two hard-fought wins against my creative former club-mate, and two draws of which I was quite proud. Mostly however he won decisively. When he had activity, he seemed to rapidly recognize the hidden possibilities and come into his own.
He was also my Glorney cup manager for at least four years in the 70s. He was always helpful and encouraging to we juniors. At one of these events we learned that he had (perhaps prophetically) brought a boomerang with him. This may have been because he had come straight from a wind energy conference; we understood he would be arriving a day late, just in time for the chess. On the way down I and the other players were in a train carriage that had stopped in a station somewhere in England, and another train was stopped next to us on the next platform. It was greatly amusing to see Peter looking at us from the other carriage - traveling in the opposite direction! Just as well we were behaving.
Sometimes he would relate a key issue of his current wind energy project, perhaps with the aid of salt cellars and cutlery and even the napkin, and I would try to (sort of) follow. While I was visiting him in hospital he took a call from an old work colleague who was anticipating meeting him at a conference. Peter explained he would be unable to attend. I didn't know the conference was about multi-rotor systems. Peter had told me before that this was an idea he had long advocated, which had long ago been shelved as impractical but which to his evident excitement was now making a comeback due the latest theoretical developments, of which some were down to him. Not that he told me this last part!
Philosophical and practical as he was near the end, he must have been frustrated to miss hearing about these conference proceedings by a couple of days.
For anyone with access to LinkedIn there is a lovely obituary there (search for eg Garrad and Jamieson) and a very appreciative thread underneath, from what seems to comprise the great and the good in wind energy.
As well as to his family and friends, Peter's departure is a great loss to a number of spheres in which he contributed his best.
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