As well as Saturday being the occasion of Chiswick Amateur Regatta it was also the eightieth birthday of the club’s president, John Peters, and to mark this significant milestone John invited club members and a number of his rowing and skiffing contemporaries to a celebration, held in the QBC clubroom on Sunday afternoon.
John has a long association with the club and has a long family connection: John’s grandfather Freddie Peters was employed as boatman in 1889 by the Polytechnic (predecessor to the University of Westminster) and when he retired after 45 years in 1934 he was succeeded by his son and John’s father, Tom. In those days the boatman and his family lived in a flat inside the boathouse and so it was that on 2nd May 1946 John was born in the boathouse.
It was almost inevitable with such an upbringing that John would be involved in the sport and he started coxing crews at an early age before progressing into the “engine room” in his teens. At the age of nineteen he represented Great Britain in a junior international match against the Netherlands and, together with Lionel Bailey, won the coxless pairs event.
John first represented the club at Henley Royal Regatta in the Thames Cup of 1966 and competed for the club at the Regatta on eighteen separate occasions from 1966 to 1986, as well as representing other clubs in 1978, 1979 and 1980. In 1967 he was in the crew that lost in the final of the Wyfold Challenge Cup by ½ length and in 1975 he stroked the eight that lost in the final of the Thames Challenge Cup. In 1968 the club’s first eight, with John at stroke, won the home international for England on Lake Blessington, Ireland.
In the Head of the River Race John started a long run of taking part, first coxing Quintin crews, and then rowing. Between 1968 and 1975 he was in Quintin crews that finished in the top ten five times, with a best place of sixth in 1970. In 1981 he executed the unusual feat of stroking QBC I, starting in 17th place, and coxing QBC VII, starting 419th, both in the same boat.
John was club captain from 1970 to 1971, from 1975 to 1977 and from 1982 to 1985, and since then has coached many Quintin and University of Westminster crews, including the first Quintin crew to compete in the Women’s Eights Head of the River Race.
John Peters, Brian Fentiman and Lionel Bailey in 2018; three of the eight that won the Home International for England in 1968.
