Peter Howes
Mishmash celebrates eclecticism with a broad range of programmes from world music, classical music, opera and popular music, even easy listening, presenting in each show an interesting range of comment, poetry, interviews, and anecdotes – always on a particular theme. You will find something different in every Mishmash.
Recent broadcasts have featured a young busking violinist from Brighton, a tribute to the musical development of John Barry, a celebration of the music of The Beatles covered by artists from Peter Sellers to Goldie Hawn, and a musical quiz with all the questions being related to the Solent, Sailing and the Sea.
What made you want to join Coastway – Hospital Radio for Brighton?
Over the past 25 years I have lived and worked in South Africa, Japan and England. My heart is in Hove actually! Coastway Hospital Radio in Brighton celebrates twenty- five years of broadcasting this year, so you could say we were drawn to one another quite naturally. When it came to offering diverse broadcasting skills, my home town had the first option! I was drawn to Brighton’s Coastway Hospital Radio because of the dynamic friendliness of all the presenters, producers and technical staff, all of whom give freely of their time to support the station in many ways.
What do you like best about Coastway?
Every presenter offers wonderful insights into local life and a wide variety of great music. Team spirit is second to none: I have never worked in as friendly a radio station; everyone offers help whenever it is needed – whether technical, musical, or even hard-work recording and research; and all are most supportive and caring also. In short, Brighton’s Coastway Hospital Radio is a gold-mine of skills.
How did you get into presenting?
Recommended by a friend who overheard me chatting to someone in an Oxfam shop in Hove, some years ago, I worked on the founding and setting up of a new local community radio station before being recommended (again) to present my own show, Mishmash – which I have learned to love producing every Monday evening from 18:00 to 19:00.
Who/what are your biggest influences?
Fine music, a calm sea, placid sunshine and a good book or three hundred. The art of William Blake and the art and writing of Vincent Van Gogh as well as the poetry of Shelley, Byron, and Keats influence me, as do the writings of Tolstoy, Maupassant, Zola, Dostoevsky, Dickens and Conrad. When I lived in Japan I loved the tranquillity of the Buddhist temples and the deep peace of their gardens which affected me profoundly; I live in Japanese style at home still for I believe that all creativity stems from inner peacefulness.
What have been your biggest achievements?
At university I played keyboards in a dance band; so, when I was in the army and we were asked if we played any musical instruments, I replied ‘the piano’. ‘You’re not lugging a piano around the parade ground,’ smirked the sergeant major who gave me
two weeks to learn another instrument: the trumpet. I was a proud band member for the rest of my military career.
As a lecturer of English language and literature at several international universities and colleges in the 1980s and 1990s I was gratified to achieve a Masters Degree in English by dissertation. It was not an end in itself, in fact it was more of a beginning, for I
have been studying, researching and writing ever since!
When I was thirty-three I was elected the head of the World delegation of 33 countries represented on the 1990 Youth Culture Tour to Taiwan, Republic of China, where I was asked, as the culmination of the international tour to address the senate in Taipei – my first major broadcast on radio and TV – which I was able to do in Chinese and English.
After a career as classical-music buyer for Virgin Megastores, I was promoted to manage a store within the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank where I was able to meet many of my great musical heroes, from Vladimir Ashkenazy to Lord Menuhin – experiences which fire my show on Brighton’s Coastway Hospital Radio with inspiration every week.
Name a key tune that you love or that has inspired you
Charles Chaplin’s instrumental music, known now as ‘Smile’, composed originally for the film Modern Times (1936), to which Geoffrey Parsons and John Turner added the lyrics and title in 1954, inspires me that there is always a brighter tomorrow every time I hear it. Gidon Kremer, the violinist, recorded it in a beautiful instrumental arrangement more recently.
I was fortunate to hear Charles Aznavour in concert in Tokyo in 1991. His poignant 1972 song, ‘Comme ils disent’ (What makes a Man a Man?) is one of the most amazing songs I have ever heard – truly poetry set to music, whether in the original French (Charles Aznavour) or Italian (lyrics by Giorgio Calabrese) or the English lyrics written by Bradford Craig. This song is one of absolute liberation which inspires me always.
What do you do when you’re not broadcasting?
I work full-time as an archivist for a local firm of solicitors – looking after their files, databases of deeds, wills and enduring powers of attorneys. This allows me to head for the beach beside the pier at lunchtimes in summer to soak up the sea; or attend local exhibitions and art galleries when the weather is inclement. You will often find me at the Jubilee Library researching details for my forthcoming Mishmash shows on Brighton’s Coastway Hospital Radio.
At home, I possess no television, so I read voraciously, write poetry – occasionally appearing at the Brighton Poetry Society gatherings – and paint the occasional watercolours with which I am better pleased than usual. To escape the humdrum, I crew regularly on local yachts and enjoy riding my motorbike – but never at the same time!
