Peter Kemp

PETER KEMP. That’s his full name. Quite a mouthful, but he is known to most as Peter, or wee Peter. Only five foot nothing but a fiery character not known to suffer fools gladly. Prickly and tough on the outside, yet to those closest, soft on the inside. Once asked by a millionaire if he could build him a yacht, Peter replied, ‘I can build it but can you bloody well sail it?’ Peter is well known in yachting circles for his quest for accuracy – a virtue loved by designers and loathed by builders. He will tackle problems head on, saying, ‘Don’t just look at it, just do it’. Or, ‘He who never made a mistake never made anything.’ This quest for perfection almost drove him to self-destruction but the anchor of family and a love of the hills kept him on the straight and narrow. Peter left school at fourteen to start an apprenticeship in Harland and Wolff, then John Brown’s. When work in the shipyards dried up, he moved into yacht building. He’s now firmly on dry land as shop steward/staff council representative for all Sainsbury’s branches in Scotland and Northern Ireland. At home Peter is a quiet, private, family man with many interests and talents, such as painting, poetry, photography, social and industrial history, ancestry research, and music. Above all he has a love of Scotland that kept him there, staying through hard times and good, unlike many others who left to search for a better life.