R.I.P. PETER LEAY - 28th November 2020
29 November 2020
It is very sad news to hear that Peter Leay who managed the Roxy Music Fan Club for many years passed away yesterday.
Many thanks to Jocelyn Fiske for sharing her memories in tribute to Peter and his contribution to the Roxy Music story.
Pete Leay first met Roxy on June 14th, 1972 at the Liverpool Stadium when they were supporting Nazareth. I know this because he good-humoredly used to love rubbing my nose in the fact he’d seen Roxy before me.
Band, management and Pete must have instantly hit it off, because by the time of Virginia Plain and the Peel session, he was working with them, setting up and tirelessly running the Roxy Music Fan Club.
Back then, no one could put a face to the name, but we all knew Peter Leay lived at, 9, Sunbury Road, Wallasey.
We’d wait with bated breath for the latest Roxy Fan Club missive to drop through our letter boxes, sometimes weighted with a free Roxy badge. We’d pore over every sentence, every bit of inside info, every item on the shop list, mentally counting up our pennies to see if we could afford a Roxy T -shirt AND an Eddie Riff sweatshirt in one splurge.
We’d enter competitions translating the Latin in A Song for Europe to win an oversized For Your Pleasure badge – as modelled by Bryan Ferry on the lapel of his white suit/ black shirt combo.
And later, we’d be forever thankful that Pete persuaded the management to agree to the ‘first two rows at gigs offered to fan club members only’ policy. Now just a distant dream.
When I moved to Manchester in 1974, I used to regularly make the short pilgrimage by train and ferry across the Mersey to see Pete at what I imagined to be, a very glamorous Roxy Mansions. It turned out to be a tiny room no bigger than a cupboard, crammed with boxes of beautifully produced Roxy memorabilia. We’d sit and drink endless cups of tea, Roxy-babbling for hours and laughing like drains. We found we had a mutual love of not suffering fools gladly.
When Roxy finally fizzled out and Pete suggested maybe there was no point in running the Roxy Club any more, he moved into the Indie world, running a couple of small record labels – Voodoo Ray by A Man Called Gerald was one of his big successes, even though it ended up as a legal nightmare.
Then Pete kind of fell off my radar. I found him again about 10 years ago on Facebook. He’d been working for years in the health service and was heavily involved in grass roots football. All his co-workers loved him for his kindness and his willingness to always “go the extra mile”. His young footballers said he didn’t just make their football better; he really changed their lives. He loved to immerse himself in classical music at The Liverpool Philharmonic, showcase young up and coming talented artists like Callum Parry, post filthy jokes from Popbitch and he was absolutely devoted to his lovely staffy Meg.
You could never say Pete stood on ceremony; he was always involved in something.
I will be eternally grateful that he made such a fun and unique bridge between fans and Roxy Music.
He once told me he thought he had been airbrushed out of Roxy history and I assured him nothing was further from the truth. He just replied sardonically, “Those who know, know.”
We all know Pete. Rest easy mate.
Jocelyn Fiske