Peter (Dusty) Miller

Peter Miller was in the "Class of 63".  He started at Trinity in 1958, the bulge year, and left school in the summer of 1963.  He died on Sunday 11th September 2005. 

His son Jordan wrote in an e-mail to Mary Evans: 

Dad passed away at 11:30pm on Sunday 11th September. He was rushed to hospital late Saturday night with massive stomach pains.  They went to operate but realised his large intestine had ruptured causing poisoning of the blood giving him hours if not a day to live. The world has been a better place for knowing him.  He was a loving Husband, Father and Grandfather.  Above all he was a great friend.

Mary Evans (Kelly), who knew him well writes: 

Pete was of the Class of '63 - the bad boy, brave and bold.  Not afraid to stand up to Gunner and indeed anything else he felt was unfair.  He managed to stumble along in the "D" stream throughout his school career although he "could have done better".  He was the lad that most of us remember. 

He had a rags to riches story.  Born in Semilong; his mother was a hairdresser.  He was encouraged to go into hairdressing after leaving school and managed to get into one of the top London salons and soon found himself mixing with the rich and famous.  He got to know Andrew Oldham who was manager to the Rolling Stones and through him met and became friends with the Rolling Stones, The Who and many others of that era.  He engineered a walk on part at the end of a Top of the Pops slot with the Beatles singing "All you need is love".  He later told me "I never did get paid for that" - but that was our Pete!

After his heady time in the Kings Road mixing with millionaires, he tired of hairdressing, or maybe hairdressing tired of him and he enlisted for the Army.  He endured a brief spell and soon found it wasn't for him and bought himself out.  He returned to good old Northampton and got interested in the caravan business and soon had started a small company in the Kettering area.  This business flourished due to his enterprising nature and he pioneered a system for purifying water particularly for caravans and mobile homes.  At this time he met his wife and with her, started up a training stables in Newmarket breaking-in racehorses. These two businesses eventually made him his fortune, completely deserved and earned through hard work. He had a Maserati, a yacht in Majorca, lovely country house in Cambridgeshire, 2 grown up kids and a grand-daughter.

We'll miss Pete, a man of great spirit, happy to be in the moment whatever that moment happened to be.  We can all learn a lesson from him and we salute him wherever he is.

Suzanne Withington (Boswell) who knew him both at school and then later writes:

I remember Pete Miller as a young man of passion and compassion, of generosity, of humour and spirit; a man with a zest for life and a man intolerant of injustice and bigotry.  We knew him as a young man and then again, briefly, just a year or so before his death, as an older man who seemed to have found his place and happiness in life, a man who delighted in his life and his family (and his beer!), a man who could make you smile and whose smile you remember.