THE songs of a Bury-born musician who became a familiar face on TV in the Seventies and Eighties are being celebrated in a new remastered compilation.

Peter Skellern: The Complete Island and Mercury Recordings features six albums from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, two of which have never been released on CD before.

Peter Skellern was born in Bury in 1947. He attended Derby High School and his father John was a former mayor of Bury.

A talented musician, Peter studied piano at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music but rather than enter the classical world he became the keyboard player with a group, The March Hare.

It was at this time that Peter met Johnny Stirling who would become his manager and lifelong friend. Peter sadly died from an inoperable brain tumour in 2017, aged 69.

“We were both so young really,” remembers Johnny. “I was 21 and and he was 22 when he was in The March Hare.”

Johnny worked for an agency and was looking after the band but in those early days he did not realise what a talent performer he was working with.

“Peter was very much the quiet one of the group,” said Johnny. “One thing that did strike me right away was that he was a very good musician, but then he had been to the Guildhall School.

“I first started to see him in a different light when the band began playing working men’s clubs and they had to have an act rather than just turning up and singing pop songs. Peter showed himself to be a talented actor and as part of the act he also sang in this great deep voice; previously I had only heard him sing high harmonies.”

When The March Hare split Peter was determined to follow a solo career in spite being the most unlikely pop star.

“He didn’t look like a pop star and he didn’t sound like what was deemed to be a pop star at that time,” said Johnny. “But I discovered that he could write these songs which were both different and interesting. They were more like Hoagy Carmichael or George Gershwin which for someone of such a young age was amazing.

“Even now I don’t know where that came from and Peter himself didn’t either. I had listened to a lot of records growing up and collected jazz albums from an early age but Peter hadn’t. He wasn’t familiar with many of the great songwriters and yet he could produce these wonderful songs.”

Peter’s had a hit with You’re A Lady in 1972 and he would have other singles successes with Hold On To Love and You’re A Lady and released more than 15 solo albums. He was a familiar face on That’s Life and appeared on Radio Four’s Stop the Week, contributing a topical song every week.

The new compilation follows the success of a similar release of his Decca albums a couple of years ago.

“When it came to his music Peter was always confident in what he was doing,” said Johnny. “It took me a while to realise what a good lyricist he was too - he was a natural storyteller. There is a timeless nature to them which makes them relevant today.”

Johnny’s niece, the actress Rachael Stirling, is married to Elbow frontman Guy Garvey adding to Johnny’s own own Bury connection.

“Guy is a huge fan of Peter’s and at one point they were planning on doing something together which sadly never came about,” he said.

Peter Skellern: The Island and Mercury Recordings is out now available from mint-audio.co.uk