John Peel remembered

There's an excellent interview with Sheila Ravenscroft, John Peel's widow, over at the Telegraph. It's really lovely - you see the depths of emotion in Peel and his clear love of his wife and his kids. And they say rock and roll kills family values.

Lots of fun anecdotes in that article - the story of John and Sheila's first date shows that awful dates do not necessarily translate into awful marriages:
"He said: 'I'll pick you up at five. It can't be before then because I have to listen to the football results.' He turned up in his Bedford Dormobile. We'd planned to see the film 2001, but he had to call in at the doctor's first. He came out and said: 'I've been told I've got jaundice and I've got to go straight home.' So that was our first date."
And there was clearly no love lost between Peel and some of his fellow Radio One DJs:
His disdain for Simon Bates was such that, on one occasion, Peel, Sheila and [Andy] Kershaw were moved to take a 250-mile round-trip to High Wycombe simply to boo Bates's appearance as Abunazzar in Aladdin.
The idea of going on a road trip just to boo somebody you don't like is quite funny.

(Link from No Rock&Roll Fun, which has some scathing words about the Telegraph's other Peel-related coverage)

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