Peter Christie has died aged 73. A prolific author he was Britain’s first Green Party Mayor and the youngest ever Mayor of Bideford.
Born in Portsmouth to Roy, a Youth Employment Officer, and Sheila, a College secretary he lived for a time in one of the prefabs hastily erected in that heavily bombed city. His parents later moved to Bury St.Edmunds where he attended King Edward VI Grammar School where a poem in the school magazine was his first published work. Leaving school he joined the Merchant Navy sailing around the world with the Shaw-Savill line. Leaving the sea he became an archaeological worker before enrolling into a Geography degree at Portsmouth Polytechnic later becoming the first student in his department to undertake a postgraduate degree. He obtained a lecturing post at North Devon College in Barnstaple where he stayed until 2012, also becoming an Open University lecturer and working for both the WEA and Exeter University. After hearing Edward Goldsmith talk about the ecological crisis he joined the Ecology Party being elected to Bideford town council in 1983 and becoming Mayor in 1985 – a post he filled on a further 3 occasions he coming top of the poll for the next 11 elections.
In 1991 he was elected as a Green Party candidate to Torridge district council becoming chairman in 2014. Here he co-founded a local nature reserve, set up a scheme to help establish local businesses and took on many environmental issues. In addition to his lecturing job he also ran a second-hand book and record shop for some 30 years in Bideford and published 41 books on North Devon history plus over 1000 articles in both the North Devon Journal and the North Devon Gazette. From 2006 until his death he penned a weekly column on ‘Bideford Life’ for theJournal as well as providing a page of old photographs and local history. Additionally from 1991 until 2004 he was Reviews Editor for The Local Historian the magazine of the British Association for Local History.
Somehow he also managed to fit in being a trustee of the Bideford Bridge Trust, the North Devon Maritime Museum and chairman of the North Devon Athenaeum. In 1978 he married Judith Brown, a talented singer, though they divorced in 2001. He is survived by his daughters Jessica and Maeve, six grandchildren and his partner Annette Waehler.
