The former advertising executive was the visionary and founder behind many of the UK Church’s most loved ministries, including Buzz (later Premier Christianity), Spring Harvest and Premier Christian Radio. Steve Goddard worked alongside him for decades and pays tribute to a man who made an incalculable impact
We can take nothing with us into the great beyond but, if allowed two books, Peter Meadows, who died from cancer on Friday aged 84, would probably have the Bible in one hand, and Hot and Cold by the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan in the other.
A creative synthesis of these starkly-different publications sums up the remarkable and influential life of a man who left school with one O Level – but went on to create Buzz (now Premier Christianity) magazine, with a monthly, paid-for circulation of more than 30,000 at its peak; Spring Harvest, in its heyday attracting 60,000 people each Easter to three UK holiday sites and Premier Radio, London’s first Christian station, which now reaches 1.2 million people across the country (and beyond) every week.
From class clown to advertising exec
Despite being a bright child and earning a place at his local grammar school, Peter, an undiagnosed dyslexic, never turned in a satisfactory piece of homework. ”They failed to discover I could write so I never passed English Language,” he recalled. “My daily school life was about being disruptive wherever possible. I needed affirmation and an audience – which led me to becoming the class clown.”
Later, as part of a semi-professional rock band, Terry Anton and the Rhythm Rockers, he played major dance halls and recorded demos at Abbey Road Studios. At the same time, an Art O Level in his pocket, he joined a London advertising agency as a £4-a-week trainee. A non-creative administrator, he discovered McLuhan whose ideas “transformed my thinking and approach to communication.” He also spent much of his time in the creative departments ”watching, listening, learning” and admiring the pursuit of excellence.
He had been in advertising for three years when he became a Christian. At 19 he was “totally selfish, dirty-minded and foul mouthed… then God met me and changed me.” He started to use what he had learned professionally to communicate in a church setting. An inevitable clash of cultures followed. Here was a high-impact copywriter and advertising executive putting a bit of creative stick about in an institution still wistful about that golden age when clergymen ruled the earth. But while traditionalists tut-tutted, baby boomers got blessed.
MGO, Spring Harvest and more
Still a bachelor boy himself, it was a Cliff Richard and the Settlers concert at which he met his wife. He produced all the publicity for the event at Manchester’s Palace Theatre. Meanwhile drama student Rosemary Hill, a no-nonsense, practical and equally quick-witted northerner, was asked to do the artists’ make up. A few weeks later, Cliff was hosting a meal in a hotel after another of his concerts in London. Peter, who had been invited, took the chance to ask Rosie to be his plus one. A proposal and marriage soon followed with Cliff letting them honeymoon in his town house on the Algarve. The Meadows went on to have five children. “Rosie was the key to all my best times,” said Peter, “including our holidays, Christmas and the fun and joy that filled the house and our lives.”
By now he had become friends with two highly-talented men, David Payne and Geoff Shearn. Together they formed Musical Gospel Outreach (MGO). For 10 years the triumvirate tore up new ground – running training events and tours for Christian musicians, launching the first UK record company exclusively for contemporary Christian music and, year after year, selling out the Royal Albert Hall.
Bringing it all together was Buzz, which started in October 1965 as two sheets of A4 folded by hand in a disused church hall by the Vauxhall underground railway arches. “Things were so primitive,” said Peter, “that if we wanted to contact Geoff we’d phone the number of the phone box outside his house, hoping someone would answer and knock on his door!” However basic the production, the content was a lifeline for a post-war, beat generation sitting uncomfortably in hard wooden pews, trying to make sense of an historic faith in a world influenced by the invention and iconoclasm of the Beatles et al.
Ever restless, ever inventive, in the mid-1970s Peter sold copies of Buzz at a Methodist youth weekend at a Pontins Holiday site in North Wales. The event was “very unimpressive” but he began to dream of using the site for “something big and significant for God”. He shared the concept with his board who suggested a partnership with British Youth for Christ. In 1979 Spring Harvest was born – a heady, creative fusion of contemporary Christian worship, teaching and music, presented by leading exponents from across the denominations. Its impact on the UK Church is incalculable.
Peter then served as executive director for the Luis Palau Mission to London in 1984 and head of communications for the Evangelical Alliance, for whom he suggested the campaign slogan: “A world falling apart needs a people coming together”. Classic Meadows!
A change in the law in 1990 made it possible for religious groups to own a radio station and Peter “started to feel pregnant!” He built a talented team, raised £1.5m and, after one failed attempt, won a licence. Premier Radio was born. Sadly, the business plan didn’t work out and he was asked to leave, along with other key people, which proved “by far the most painful work experience of my life.” New leadership took Premier to where, by his own admission, he would never have taken it, leaving him the opportunity to consult at various Christian agencies – including World Vision and the Bible Society – where he was the creative ghost in the machine for many high-profile campaigns.
In 2023 Rosie contracted cancer and a series of strokes that followed eventually took her life. They had been married for 52 years. “It wasn’t that I had a great faith that saw me through,” he admitted, “but that I understood God was with me and would use what was happening for my good and the good of others.”
The challenge that motivated him
Like all of us, Peter Meadows was a child of his time. Captivated and engaged by a life-changing faith, he loved the challenge of interpreting and presenting it with power through the prism of contemporary media. While many traditionalists try to fight the culture, he subverted it, often playfully, always looking for le mot juste for the latest campaign. To be in a meeting with him was always exciting but you had to be on your mettle. Indeed, it was important to psyche yourself up before entering the room, to try and beat him to the first line of banter. If you couldn’t cope with the heat of intense mental jousting, you were best leaving the kitchen.
At the heart of it was Peter’s desire for excellence but not at any expense. “God is more interested in what we become than what we achieve,” he said recently. ”If I was remembered for being humble and kind that would do nicely.” Perhaps because of his hidden work for so many organisations, he didn’t receive the national recognition he deserved, a ghost flying under the ‘gong’ radar.
Before her death, and aware of his propensity for hard work, Rosie said his tombstone should read: “Gone to another meeting.” On Friday the time came for a very special meeting, and a joyous reunion.
Peter is survived by five children – Kristen, Joel, Aran, Zac and Xanna and eight grandchildren
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