Robert Ravenscroft

Robert (Bob) Ravenscroft (1908 - 1970) was Peel's dad and a cotton merchant who owned a mill factory in Merseyside. Peel discussed his relationship with his father considerably in the TV documentary Father And Son and in his autobiography Margrave Of The Marshes.

Father And Son
In the documentary, Peel described not seeing his father for the first 6 years of his life, due to him fighting in North Africa during the war. He first saw his father in Anglesy, where he told his mother, who was this stranger coming home, which his mum burst crying and telling him that this was his father.

Peel described how his father went to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to do business and whether he would take the whole family. By the time, he came back, Peel was put into boarding school at Shrewsbury School.

During the documentary, Peel revealed that his father beat him once compared to his mother who would do regular beatings. He described also how his father lectured him on the importance of regular bowel movements and described it as  'a golden moment of his childhood'.

Throughout the programme, Peel described how he was not close to his father until he got cancer and was bedridden, where the relationship became closer, which he asked himself  'why couldn't it be like this all the time'.

Margrave Of The Marshes
Apart from the relationship discussed in the autobiography, Peel mentioned how his parents divorced whilst studying at boarding school and how his father later married another woman. Later his father arranged with a friend to get him to work in Rochdale and then in America.

Mentioned In Shows
1983 1999 2001 Others
 * You'll Never Walk Alone(2): Peel mentions his father is buried in Landican Cementary in Wirrall.
 * 28 July 1999: Charlie Kunz: 'Kunz Solo Medley: Lovely To Look At / Smoke Gets In Your Eyes / Night & Day' (The Peelenium track was played in memory of Peel's father, who died in 1970 and was a big Charlie Kunz fan)
 * 05 July 2001: Charlie Kunz: Piano medley feat. Only You, All I Need Is You, Pennsylvania Polka - Pig's Big 78 (JP: 'He was my dad's favourite artist and that's the first time I've ever played one of his records on the radio.')
 * 23 August 2001: Charlie Kunz: 'Love Walked In / So Little Time / Says My Heart' (LP 'The Very Best Of') Prism Leisure (JP: "In case you've forgotten why it is I'm playing these records, it's because Charlie Kunz was my dad's favourite")
 * 26 September 2001: Charlie Kunz: Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year/Echo Of A Serenade/San Fernando Valley (LP - The Very Best Of) Prism Leisure (JP: "Grotesque self-indulgence of course, my dad's favourite artist... I was down in a record shop on Oxford Street this afternoon looking at further Charlie Kunz LPs, so there is a possibility that once I've exhausted this LP there'll be more.")
 * Interview: On Liverpool FC, Heysel, Hillsborough: "I mean, people in Liverpool didn’t think of me as being a Liverpool person at all, but I thought of myself as being a Liverpool person because that’s where I like to be and that’s where I worked and that’s where my father worked, and my mother and father both came from there, and so on. So I thought of myself as a Liverpudlian."