BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 57
ENTREPRENEURS
more strings to his bow.
When people ask me about Peter,
I usually explain that he was a
Cambridge graduate who created the
昀椀rst real quality pizza restaurant brand
in the UK, developed it successfully,
made a personal fortune of some £35
million, and then spent it all. But, I
hasten to add, he spent hardly any of it
on himself.
The Posh, and saw them on to bigger
and better things, though I don’t think
that this was always fully appreciated.
“Peter played host to many
great jazz artistes and musical
celebrities from Jamie Cullum
to Liza Minelli, and even to
Mussolini’s youngest son
Romano”
Pizza Express Dean Street and Pizza
on the Park, which offered artistes
and musicians from both sides of the
Atlantic the opportunity to perform
in two of very few intimate rooms
in London, and played host to many
great jazz artistes and musical
celebrities from Jamie Cullum to
Liza Minelli, and even to Mussolini’s
youngest son Romano, actually a 昀椀ne
jazz pianist!
Peter believed that Peterborough
had need of a good modern theatre,
and so he built one: a multi-purpose
1200 seat theatre. This project
overran 昀椀nancially by quite a lot and
apparently ended up setting him back
around £11 million – a ludicrous
amount for a provincial theatre, but
no expense was spared to create a real
“state-of-the art” offering for the good
citizens of Peterborough.
Where it all started in 1965, when founder
Peter Boizot brought great pizza to London
with a dough, a dream, and a chef from
Sicily.
So these are just a few examples of
Peter’s generosity and commitment to
his passions and beloved hometown,
Peterborough, over the years that he
and I were good friends:
I think perhaps a good start would
be Peterborough United Football
Club, familiarly known as The Posh.
Peter was less interested in football
than he was in hockey, which he
played until the ripe old age of 70,
but when it became clear that The
Posh had serious need of investment,
he promptly stepped up to the
plate, bought the club, and invested
substantially in it.
On top of the purchase price, it cost
him personally around £1 million a
year for some 10 years to keep the
club a昀氀oat. He was the man who saved
He was a signi昀椀cant party donor and
very active in local politics and, being
a staunch supporter of the Liberal
Party, he twice stood as the Liberal
candidate for Peterborough, his
slogan being “Peter Boizot – From
Peterborough, For Peterborough”.
For his “sins in life” Peter was also
a staunch 昀椀nancial supporter of the
magni昀椀cent Peterborough Cathedral,
in which he was once a choirboy and
where I had the privilege of giving his
eulogy to some 1 000 people at Peter’s
memorial service, which was also
covered by local TV.
But, while Peter did more than enough
to be granted the Freedom of City of
Peterborough, which he duly received,
he did not con昀椀ne his benevolence to
his hometown. He went much further
than that.
He founded and funded The Soho Jazz
Festival to support and promote two
of his other great passions: jazz music
and the village of Soho, where in 1965
he opened his 昀椀rst Pizza Express, in
Wardour Street, and reinvented the
famous Soho landmark bar, Kettner’s.
He gave London two of its bestknown and best-loved music rooms,
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The iconic Pizza Express logo
He sponsored our England hockey
team, who went on to win Gold at the
Olympic Games, and of course, he
had the inspired idea of supporting the
Venice in Peril Fund, another city he
loved, by creating a special pizza, the
Veneziana, and contributing a small
sum for every Veneziana sold in Pizza
Express throughout the country.
This eventually raised more than
a million pounds for the fund, and
Peter’s well deserved reward for this
unique donation was to receive Italy’s
civilian honour, the title of Cavaliere
Uf昀椀ciale. It could not have gone to a
better man.
