The Queen and I

HAVING spent much of his life working for the Foreign Office in some of the world’s largest cities – interpreting for Prime Ministers and at one point the Queen, Peter Denison-Edson wanted to retire somewhere special. It was only by chance he stumbled across Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales, but the second he stood on the village green, he fell in love with it.

As the newly-appointed chairman of the Swaledale Festival and also founder and chairman of the Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Archaeology Group (SWAAG), he has not only settled into village life, but become an integral part of the community.

Peter was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Lancaster before reading geography and postgraduate economics at St John’s College, Cambridge. From 1968 to 1986 he worked as a diplomat in the British Embassies in Tokyo and Mexico City.

He had only been married ten days when he was sent to Japan and couldn’t speak a word of Japanese. He is now fluent. His twin sons were born there and he regards it as “a second home”.

“It was a complete culture shock, but we became great fans of Japanese food,” he says.

“Our children were weaned on rice and seaweed and they loved it. One thing the Japanese liked to do was test you and one of the tests was having a fish skewered in front of you.

They would slice the sashimi off a living fish or you would have little, still-beating, turtle hearts served on a wide rimmed cocktail glass full of ice and you’d have to pick them up with your chopsticks.”

He didn’t taste it, he says, just swallowed it.

Another memorable occasion was in 1975 when the Queen visited Japan and Peter, who was a diplomat at the British Embassy, was the official interpreter. It was the first time a British reigning monarch had visited Tokyo and it was made clear that only a Japanese interpreter would be allowed to translate the words of the Emperor. “The only time this had been breached was when General Douglas Macarthur used his interpreter at the end of the Second World War,” says Peter.

After considerable discussion, it was decided that Peter would be allowed to be translate the conversation between the Queen and the Emperor, but only if he was trained in the special level of language that had to be used when addressing the Emperor.

“I was incredibly nervous,” he recalls. “I had to be dressed in white tie, which is not the most comfortable garb, and as a precaution, sitting smack across from me was the official Imperial interpreter, who was interpreting for Prince Phillip and the Empress and was clearly sitting there so that if the Emperor showed any signs of discomfort he could flip around.”

“Then, of course, the Emperor came in, sat down and for one of the few times in his life, he found he was talking to an equal so the conversation literally began, ‘how are your children?’ The Queen wasn’t using language such as ‘Your Imperial Majesty’, but more “They’re grand, they’re having a bit of trouble with X, but Y is fine,’ so I just went along with it.’ Peter spent a week with the Queen during her visit, who he says had “a lovely ironic sense of humour”.

After six years in Japan and a brief stint in London, he was sent to Mexico which he also loved. “The Japanese are highly organised with huge attention to detail, Mexicans are very good at organising things, but they leave it until the last minute,” he says.

In the early Eighties, he returned to Japan where it was his job to get Japanese industry, including Nissan, to invest in the UK. In 1986, he moved to Northern Ireland where he remained for 25 years, helping companies do business in Japan.

It wasn’t until 2005, when Peter returned to Lancaster after his mother died, that he found himself in North Yorkshire. With a spare few hours with nothing to do, his wife suggested he should look up his “old haunts” and have a drive around Swaledale. It was then that he found himself on a bright sunny day on the village green in Reeth.

Peter and his wife decided to rent a holiday cottage in Reeth before eventually selling their home in Ireland and moving there permanently in February 2013. Sadly, only ten days later, Peter’s wife died of pneumonia.

Although brief, the couple had had some very happy times in Swaledale which prompted Peter to stay and immerse himself in the history, culture and music that the area has to offer.

In 2009, along with a small group of local enthusiasts, he set up Swaledale and Arkengarthdale Archaeology Group (SWAAG). The group now has 50 members and thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £76,000, has embarked on the Swaledale Big Dig to explore the medieval heritage of three local villages. The project which is looking for volunteers was launched in March by archaeologist, Carrenza Lewis of the Channel 4 series Time Team.

“We are trying to find what I call the ‘missing centuries’,” says Peter. “We know a bit about pre-historic Swaledale, but there are big gaps between the Romans and the Domesday Book and between the Domesday Book and the 17th Century.”

He may have travelled the world and mixed in royal circles, but as far as Peter is concerned, Reeth is now his home. As he points out, if it wasn’t for his wife, who prompted him to drive around the Dales that day, he might never have found it.