Peter D. Smith

SMITH, Peter David. b. near Weybridge, Surrey, 26 April 1938. He was educated at Farnham Grammar School, where he learned classical piano, gaining the nickname, ‘Mozart Smith’. In the mid-1950s, he discovered Skiffle and, later, developed an interest in folk music. He taught himself to play the guitar, and sang with a friend at folk concerts and clubs. He felt a vocation to ministry while serving an apprenticeship in the aircraft industry, and trained at the Richmond Theological College for the Methodist ministry. He did a youth leadership course in Birmingham and started work at a mission near the Bootle Docks in Liverpool, where he was known as ‘the Singing Minister from the Mission’. His...