A Small Tribute to a Good Friend of Flag Fen and Peterborough: The Late Peter Boizot.

I was so sad to read of the death of Peter Boizot at his home in Peterborough on December 5th, aged 89. Peter had been a good friend of Flag Fen and Fenland Archaeological Trust, the charity we set-up to open and manage the visitor attraction and to research into Fenland Archeology. On several occasions in the mid-1990s, when times were tough and money was hard to raise, Peter’s generosity quite simply kept us going. We owe him a HUGE debt of gratitude. He, Maisie and I got on very well personally, too. Like him, I shared a huge love of jazz and of pizzas and I have always made a point of eating at a Pizza Express whenever I’m in a town that I don’t know very well. Peter supported many enterprises in Peterborough, including Posh (Peterborough United, the city’s football club) and theatres, cinemas etc. He even agreed to honour our Trust by becoming a Patron, along with HRH The Duke of Gloucester, who had the terrible misfortune of playing in the same cricket team at school as me; I think we were both equally inept with bat and ball.

I have many fond memories of Peter, but one that will stay with me was during the excavation of the timber circle known as Seahenge, at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, back in 1999. One day I was with the archaeologists because Maisie, who was in charge of digging and recording the wood, had asked me to help her and the team lift some heavy posts across the beach to our trailer – which would then take them to Flag Fen for washing and drawing. At the time we had been having a lot of trouble from people who thought Seahenge shouldn’t be excavated and should be ‘left to the waves’. Of course this ignored the fact that it had deliberately been positioned in 2049 BC behind about a quarter of a mile’s worth of coastal dunes that would have protected it from the sea. I’m sure its constructors would have been as appalled as us, if they knew it was bound to be destroyed by the sea. Anyhow, the protestors made our lives very unpleasant with nasty threats and lots of insults. Sadly, I detect similar feelings in our country at the moment.

All the nastiness was starting to get us down and then one day we noticed a large and slightly portly gentleman walking slightly uncertainly towards us along the beach. He was bare foot and wore pale and capacious cotton shorts and a loose-fitting shirt. It was Peter. Normally he had a broad smile and I don’t think I have ever seen anyone less pompous or patronising. But today he seemed less confident than usual. I gather he had been taken for a short break in Norfolk and was plainly rather unused to be doing nothing. I’m just guessing, but I don’t think holidays ever loomed large in Peter’s life. But he had agreed and so off he went. Of course he had read about Seahenge, so he thought he’d look us up – which is what he was doing. Needless to state, Maisie and I greeted him warmly and showed him the dig. All the diggers took to him immediately. Quite rapidly, his hesitancy gave way to enthusiasm. And of course Peter was delightful: he asked lots of questions and by the time he left, everyone’s spirits had been lifted. He made it clear that he thought we were doing a very important job, under near-impossible conditions. And he was right: as I recall, the tide was starting to come in when he left and water levels were rising in the trenches.

After he’d gone, everyone on the team wanted to know who that nice man was. So I told them: ‘That was Peter Boizot, the founder of Pizza Express.’ I might just as well have said: ‘That was Her Majesty the Queen, or Nelson Mandela.’ Because everyone was gob-smacked. We all loved Pizza Express. And in the minds of those chilled diggers Peter Boizot could walk on water. He still can. We miss you Peter.

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Peter Boizot (1929-2018)