A NORTH-EAST teacher is finally gaining the recognition he craved, but never quite achieved, in 15 years as a professional rock musician.

Peter Simpson, from Bowburn, County Durham, spent many years on the road with several bands, in the 1970s and 1980s.

But it is only after giving up his rock'n'roll stage career that his songwriting talents have been rewarded.

Mr Simpson joined his first band, Geneva, as guitarist and songwriter in 1973.

His first big chance came shortly afterwards when the band were given the chance to play in Germany for two weeks.

Mr Simpson said: "We never made it because the van blew up on the Autobahn and we didn't have enough money to carry on.

"It was the classic rock'n'roll story."

In 1977, he joined a covers band, Planet, playing about 600 gigs in two years and touring Germany, Holland and Belgium.

After playing on the cabaret circuit for a number of years, he started another band, Larry and the Actors, with his brother, Paul, in 1985.

The Actors' big chance came with a rave review of a demo tape in listings magazine, Paint It Red, which compared the band to the early REM.

Mr Simpson said: "From that point, a lot of record companies were chasing us, but we were never signed.

"We had a single out just before the Hillsborough tragedy, but it was called Crashing The Gate and that was deemed inappropriate to be played on the radio."

The single earned him the princely sum of £1.64.

Not long after that, in 1989, Mr Simpson decided to call it a day on rock'n'roll as a career.

After training as a teacher, he joined Greenfield Community and Arts College, Newton Aycliffe, where his success started.

Last year, the school beat off 2,000 entries to win the national Song For the Millennium competition.

The track, called Don't Let Tomorrow Be Too Late, was recorded in George Martin's Air Studio, in London, and pupils performed the song at the Millennium Dome.

Then another composition penned by Mr Simpson won a Government contest to find a song about maths. Pupils recorded that song with S Club 7.

Mr Simpson said: "We thought it was absolutely fantastic to win two national competitions back-to-back. It was amazing."

And the success is continuing.

Mr Simpson has just found out that a musical he wrote last year, Penmore Place, is to be performed by a Manchester school.

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