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Pete Carter: Bachelor boy had a life filled with music
A SUCCESSFUL musician from Peterborough who enjoyed a glittering career performing with some showbiz greats has died, aged 73.
A SUCCESSFUL musician from Peterborough who enjoyed a glittering career performing with some showbiz greats has died, aged 73.Pete Carter, of The Dell, Woodston, died in his sleep in the early hours of Monday morning.
He spent many years performing with The Bachelors, who enjoyed huge success in the '60s and '70s, and topped the charts with hits such as Diane and I Believe.
During his career, Pete also played with Jimmy Justice, Jet Harris, the Big Six, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and Emile Ford and The Checkmates.
He will also be known to many from around the city for the five years he spent with his wife, Joan, running the Cherry Tree in Oundle Road.
Pete Carter was born in Farcet, where his parents owned their own butchers' shop.
His passion for music began early in life, when, aged six, he started learning the piano. Later in life he went to become an accomplished guitarist, saxophone player and drummer.
In his early career, he gigged around Peterborough, was part of a skiffle band, and also a city-based band called the Rebel Rousers.
After his career took off, he performed up and down the country, as well as abroad, with a variety of acts, and, in 1965, he began working with The Bachelors, which consisted of three musicians – John Stokes, and brothers Con and Dec Cluskey.
Pete would play guitar for them in the orchestral pits of theatres around the country or on stage with them in the clubs.
The same year he began this collaboration, he met his future wife, Joan, in a hotel in Bristol.
But Joan's initial feelings about him were not that favourable.
She said: "My first impression was 'no, he's a bit too short for me'. But, apart from that, I thought he was very pleasant and very funny. He asked me out the very first time he met me. The funny thing was, I was all dressed up to go out with someone else."
But fate had decided the pair were destined to be together, and they married in Blackpool on September 17, 1966, when The Bachelors were there for the summer season.
Joan – who was dressed in a shocking pink trouser suit with gold boots – was walked down the aisle by Con Cluskey, and Dec was Pete's best man. The Bachelors were so famous that Joan and Pete's wedding photograph made the national press.
The couple went on to have one daughter, Sarah, who is now 38 and has a son and a daughter of her own.
Music was Pete's main career for many years, and in the '70s and early '80s he was Jim Davidson's musical director and wrote his signature tune.
In 1989, he and Joan took over the Cherry Tree.
Joan said: "He said one Sunday after he'd been playing 'I've put your name down, you're going to have a pub'."
But even at the helm of a business, Pete's passion still shone through.
"The Cherry Tree was the music pub of Peterborough," Joan said. "We had jazz on Sundays, folk on Mondays and every night after that was bands, and Pete used to get up and play with them sometimes.
"We met such a wonderful lot of people when we had the pub. He was a very good landlord, and very popular." The couple left the pub in 1994 and Pete continued gigging until 10 years ago, when he was diagnosed with dementia and suffered a minor stroke which affected his speech.
As well as music, Pete also loved golf, and was a member of Thorpe Wood golf club.
He also loved to keep people entertained.
Joan said: "He loved getting a microphone in his hand and telling a few jokes. A pint of beer in his hand and a fag and he was happy.
"Anybody will tell you he was very jokey. He could have told jokes for a day without stopping.
"One of his friends was round the other day who used to play golf with him and he said he started telling jokes on hole one and finished when he got to the pub."
But it was music that was his most enduring passion.
Joan said: "He was a great musician. He had a wonderful career and he loved every single second of it."
Pete's funeral will take place on Friday, 19 December, at 3.30pm in Peterborough Crematorium. There will be an open wake at the Cherry Tree, in Oundle Road, from 4pm, and all are welcome to both.
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