Gavin Petrie, who has died aged 83, was a music magazine journalist and features editor of the TV Times who turned to writing television and radio comedy with his wife, Jan Etherington, after they won the Radio Times “Sounds Funny” competition in 1987, judged by Prunella Scales, Victoria Wood and Douglas Adams; there was much amusement that a TV Times editor had won a Radio Times prize.
Their first comedy, the largely autobiographical Second Thoughts (BBC Radio 4), followed two divorcees, played by James Bolam and Lynda Bellingham, struggling to find the magic amid the mundane when he moves in with her, her two children and a large dog. Greg Dyke, then head of LWT, bought it for ITV and the show ran for five series from 1991-1995, attracting nominations and two New York Festival awards for Best International Comedy in 1992 and 1993. Etherington and Petrie created a spin-off for Bellingham, as a carefree divorcee whose romance with Jeff Rawle was somewhat hampered by her daughter (Julia Sawalha) moving back home. Faith in the Future aired on ITV from 1995 to 1998, winning the British Comedy Award in 1997.
The partnership produced other successful comedies over the years such as Next of Kin (BBC1, 1995-97), starring Penelope Keith and William Gaunt as grandparents bringing up orphaned grandchildren, and Duck Patrol (ITV, 1998), an ensemble comedy about the Thames river police, starring Richard Wilson. Their Radio 4 series included The Change (2001-04), which took on the challenging subject of a married transvestite (Christopher Ellison) and his wife (Lynda Bellingham), and The Other Man (2006), which upended the traditional “other woman” role, starring Julian Rhind-Tutt as a man in love with a married woman.
Gavin Petrie was born in Edinburgh on April 6 1942, the only son of Isabella, née Rosine, and James Petrie. His father was an electrical engineer working for Bruce Peebles, the engineering firm which provided parts for the Mulberry artificial harbours used in the Allied invasion of Normandy. He survived rather than thrived at Broughton School but he did achieve high marks in English and art. He was nearly 16 when he joined the Daily Mail in Edinburgh, beginning as a post boy – which triggered a brief stint as a member of the MailMen, with whom he played barely adequate guitar and mainly sang Buddy Holly songs.
In his nine years at the Mail he became a good cartoonist and developed as a writer, and in 1967 he moved to Glasgow, joining the Daily Record, sharing “a terrible doss-house of a flat” with his fellow journalist, Jim Dalrymple – who recalled: “One day, he got so disgusted by my filthy habits that he cleaned his side of the room, right down to the line of dust and half the ashtray, and left mine as revolting as always.”
The tail-end of the 1960s saw Petrie and several other journalists, including Dalrymple, storming down to London from Edinburgh and Glasgow, dubbing themselves the “Scotia Nostra”. Petrie joined Disc and Music Echo, and between 1968 and 1974 he rose from chief sub to features editor and then editor.
He hired John Peel to review the singles, presented platinum discs to numerous stars, including Alice Cooper, featured David Bowie in live performance on the cover for the first time and enjoyed a week at the Carlton in Cannes, all expenses paid, waiting for the Rolling Stones to emerge from recording their classic album Exile on Main Street in 1971. Penny Valentine was a writer on Disc, and in her pen portraits of staff members she described Petrie as: “Editor. Scottish Nationalist. Very strong, funny and determined. Flaps only inside. Would have made an excellent clan leader, MP or doctor.”
Petrie joined She magazine in 1975 as features editor. There, he met their regular columnist, Jan Etherington. “He looked like Dustin Hoffman’s Scottish twin and sounded like Sean Connery,” she recalled. “He was simply my boss – very direct, a ruthless editor, but intensely loyal and kind to his staff.” Their stars aligned when, two years later, she walked into TV Times and saw Petrie in the features editor’s chair.
Jan Etherington had two children and a large dog. Petrie was living a single life, and his relentless conviviality and escapades were unusually immoderate, even for those roistering times. While they considered their future, he flew to Boston with Jeffrey Bernard, taking cases of that year’s Beaujolais Nouveau to the Cheers Bar. It is uncertain if any arrived.
In 1980, he became an unconventional stepfather to Jan Etherington’s son, Tom (then 11) and daughter, Lucy (then 13), teaching them to play poker, and how to break into your house when you’ve forgotten your keys; he always took their side in family arguments. The couple almost immediately began writing Second Thoughts, which mirrored their early years as a couple.
They married in 1984 and wrote comedy together for 35 years, mostly from their Thameside home in Sunbury, but in 2013 they moved to Walberswick. Here, Petrie enjoyed creating a new garden and walking their English setter, Jagger, while she continued freelance writing. In 2017, they discussed her idea for a series about a long-married couple but there were signs that Petrie’s sharp mind was slowing down, and the following year he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
He encouraged her to write Conversations From a Long Marriage (Radio Four, from 2018, starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam) alone. She described it as a role for a strong, older, funny woman in a passionate marriage, but when friends told her: “It’s just like you two,” she realised that she had written a love letter to him.
Gavin Petrie married Ellen Frazer Beattie in 1974; they divorced in 1977. Jan survives him with his stepdaughter and stepson.
A service to celebrate Gavin's life was held at St. Andrew's Church on Friday November 21st.
The following is extracted from the eulogy, written by Jan Etherington. It's not hard to see why they were such brilliant writing partners, and wonderful partners in life:
I was standing outside the office door of the new Features Editor of SHE magazine, in 1975.
I knocked.
Gavin’s first word to me was ‘ENTER.’ (If you know the film The Sunshine Boys, you’ll be laughing)
I opened the door. He said ‘I’m Gavin. Who are you?
‘Jan Etherington, your columnist,’ I said and plonked my copy on his desk.
I watched him read it. He looked like Dustin Hoffman and sounded like Sean Connery. He was smoking a roll up. Very good hair, I thought. Doesn’t mind a silence.
He finally looked up. ‘You need to lose .. mebbe… 85 words,’
‘Right.’ I said, thinking ‘Trouble’. Then he smiled ‘But it’s very funny.’
After a year or two, he did suggest lunch – or maybe that was me – but as I walked to the office to meet him, he was coming towards me, taking another woman writer out for a drink!
He looked surprised. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To meet you for lunch.’
He blamed his secretary for the mix up. ‘Come and join us.’
‘No thanks’, I said. ‘Another time’.
I was far more upset than I should have been with a lunch mix-up, which happened all the time in those louche, casual days. He phoned the next morning, profusely apologising. I was cool, said I’d get back to him.
I told myself that we were just working colleagues and began doing major features for other magazines.
Then, a year later, I walked into TV Times and Gavin was sitting in the Features Editor chair.
It was one of the happiest days of my life.
Shortly afterwards, he called me. ‘There’s a royal documentary coming up. Go to Tetbury and talk to the businesses that supply Princess Anne’s place, Gatcombe Park You know what to do.’
So I drove to Gloucestershire and talked to the butcher, the baker, the florist, the grocer. I was in the newsagents, asking them which papers were sent to Gatcombe Park each day, when two armed Royal security police stepped out from behind the card racks. ‘What are you doing here?’
I said’ I’m writing a piece about businesses who deliver services to Princess Anne’s household. Just call my Editor, Gavin Petrie. He’ll tell you.’
One of the policeman went to make the call. He was quite a while. Gavin said ‘Ah, that was because before I took the call, I spent some time wondering whether I should say I’d never heard of you, because it would make a much better story if you got arrested.’
In spite of that, we made another lunch date. This time he showed up. We went out to lunch a lot more. We both knew what was happening before anything happened. We also knew it would be really hard for us to become a couple. He was divorced, no children. His only commitment was batch cooking bolognaise sauce for the week ahead and his relentless conviviality was unusually immoderate, even for that decade of excess.
I was a freelance journalist, married at 19, with two children at school and a large dog.
‘Harry Met Sally’ screenwriter, Nora Ephron, once said, on the subject of husbands, ‘You can’t meet anyone until you become who you are becoming.’
I realised I was ‘becoming’, still growing up, in my young, happy marriage but now I had …become… And I was different.
Years later, when Gavin’s lovely mother, Belle died, he showed me the letter he had written to her at that time, dated 30th March 1981.
Another cracking opening paragraph ‘Dear Mum and Dad, I have just bought an MGB. GT. I also enclose a photo of another acquisition..Jan Etherington.’
We got married in 1984.There were three people in our marriage. Gavin, me and Rabbie Burns.
Gavin was relentlessly Scottish. You knew his name meant White Hawk of Battle within minutes of meeting him. He arrived with a huge portrait of Rabbie Burns which he mistakenly thought he could put in the bedroom.
Did I regret getting together? Almost immediately.
A couple of nights after he moved in, I got a late evening phone call.
‘It’s me,’
‘I know’
‘I’m in the pub’
‘Which one?’.
‘Not sure. Thing is. I can’t get out. The door’s blocked. With snow.’
‘I said ‘It’s July’.
Barely a beat. ‘Jeez! Have I been here that long?’
And I laughed. Even at his most exasperating, he made me laugh…