Peter Freitag, one of the most colourful and most loquacious characters in North-East public life – and its most incorrigible name-dropper – has died. He was 93.
He had been a Liberal Democrat councillor and candidate for both Westminster and European elections, for many years chaired Darlington’s Hebrew Congregation and the town’s branch of the mental health charity MIND, was committed to improving inter-faith relationships, played in the Wimbledon veterans’ tennis championship until his late 70s and at 70 had been airlifted from an Alpine slope after breaking two ribs in a skiing accident.
“I’m a bit dented at the edges but the worst thing is that it’s affected my tennis” he said.
His entourage of big-name acquaintances ranged from Kevin Keegan to Henry Kissinger (“in the end we had to agree to disagree”) and from Eartha Kitt to the infamous call girl Christine Keeler (of whom more a little later.)
He’d also been an occasional tennis partner of legendary footballer Sir Stanley Matthews, had danced with Princess Margaret (”very sexy”) and knew subsequently disgraced Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
“He thought a lot about me. He was a dreadful judge of character” said Peter.
To the honours list might be added Prince William, who in 2015 at Buckingham Palace invested Peter with the MBE awarded for services to the community.
He was born in Czechoslovakia of German parents. His grandfather died at Auschwitz. After moving to London, he met his wife-to-be Valerie and proposed six days later. “What kept you?” asked Valerie.
“She was Audrey Hepburn, you know. Perfect,” Peter once said.
In 1965 the family moved to the North-East – “I needed to get away from my mother” – buying a house in Darlington that had been owned by another member of the Jewish community.
“I offered him two cheques – one for the sum he asked and the other if he wanted to keep my friendship” Peter recalled. The second offer was accepted.
He became sales director of the Ernest and Henry button factory at St Helen Auckland – “even in New York high society I would be seen admiring ladies’ buttons rather than their bosoms” – before opening an estate agency in Darlington in 1978.
When the business opened, the average house price was £13,800, though one had sold for just £3,000.
His Jaguar 3.8 also became familiar around the town and elsewhere – “Darlington to Baldock, 200 miles in two hours and there were roundabouts in those days” – though he also became the first person in County Durham to be charged with driving without a seat belt.
“It got about half a page in the paper, just because it was me” said Peter. “I was fined £10 and gained about £2,000 worth of free publicity.”
After six years on Darlington council in the 1970s, he was re-elected, aged 78, in 2008 – The Northern Echo thought it “sensational”.
Soon afterwards he was the only councillor to oppose house building on the former Feethams football ground.
“Homes have been built on sports grounds all over the place” said Peter, a Darlington FC vice-president.
“The town is full of youngsters looking for something to do on Saturdays and Sundays.”
He and Valerie had three children - Julie, Matthew and Wendy - and two grandchildren - Abby and Josh. Matthew is an airline pilot based in the USA, Wendy has Down’s Syndrome which drove his commitment to MIND and other mental health issues.
“Wendy once asked us what was wrong with her” said Peter. “We told her nothing, she was just different.”
In 2015, when 85, he caught the 5.18am train from Darlington – “I’d been up since half past two, I didn’t want to miss it” – in the ultimately successful hope of being called to speak in a mental health debate at the LibDems’ Spring conference in Liverpool. Speakers were allowed a maximum four minutes.
“There’s still a stigma but it’s a very difficult message to get across if you haven’t lived with it” said Peter.
The Echo’s columnist merely wondered how on earth the LibDems had managed to restrict him to four minutes.
His best story, recounted after the death of former Conservative minister John Profumo in 2006, concerned his days in a house near Marble Arch which overlooked one owned by Stephen Ward and used by Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies and friends.
“I could look out the back window of my father’s property and see the girls washing up” he recalled.
“I didn’t realise there was anything unusual about them until one day I saw Ward put a collar and lead on Keeler and walk her round Bryanston Square. Now that did seem a bit bizarre.”
The top people’s call girl remained upright, no lamps posts were involved, and she may not even have been barking.
“I couldn’t really tell if she was enjoying it, but she didn’t seem to mind” said Peter.
The Echo’s headline – “How to take a call girl for walkies” – may have been among its most memorable.
Peter later tried, unsuccessfully, to buy the flat. “I was interested to see how the two-way mirrors worked” he said.
To mark his 90th birthday, he and Valerie, eight years his junior, enjoyed a six-week holiday in Japan and Hawaii – “The Japanese were wonderful, the Americans ghastly, and you can quote me”– and about the same time paid for a bench in South Park, Darlington, across the road from their long-term home.
“Thank you for this piece of heaven on our doorstep” said the plaque, though Peter initially sent it back when the engraver omitted his MBE.
Though unwell for some time, he retained several presidencies in the community and beyond – “You get to be president when you’re old” he said.
Peter’s funeral service will be held in the Jewish section of the West Cemetery in Darlington tomorrow (March 30) at 10 30am. Valerie, he supposed, had already decreed the engraving on his gravestone: “It was never dull.”
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