I first met Peter Cameron in a lecture theatre at Liverpool University in 1968. He had just arrived and needed somewhere to live. I had taken a lease on a large, near-derelict flat in Faulkner Square in nearby Liverpool 8 and was looking for tenants. He moved in with a couple of fellow zoologists.

Pete was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was the perfect late 60s bloke – tall, blond, skinny enough for heroin chic, and had the kind of long legs that loon pants were made for. A former Fettes pupil, the Edinburgh public school later to tutor one T. Blair, he had the unassuming arrogance and charm that only proto-masters of the universe have, and was very, very funny. Nicknames were his stock-in-trade, and even beloved objects had names. In an effortless fashion coup, he arrived in Liverpool driving a US Army jeep he called Clavius. I never found out why. 

As is the way with student flats, we soon went our separate ways, but we both lived around the bohemian Devonshire Road area, so saw each other occasionally. I believe he came to my wedding party in 1975, a roaring success by all accounts, but the bride and groom had passed out on the marital bed at 5pm and missed the whole thing.

I didn’t see him again until almost 60 years later. I knew through a mutual friend that Pete had been jailed for a drugs offence. Always much more professional about weed than the rest of us back in the day, I suppose I wasn’t surprised, but the same friend told me he had taken up art in prison, and showed me a canvas of her painted by Pete. It was a perfect encapsulation of who she had been back in the 60s, a cloud of frizzy ginger hair and fizzing with energy. And she told me he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Two weeks later this huge, gorgeous, coffee-table art book landed on my desk.

Sentenced to nine years at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for smuggling 700 kg of cannabis in 1987, Pete ended up in Walton Gaol, where he had wanted to study languages, – he spoke fluent Swahili from his childhood in Africa – but the Spanish class proved too rowdy, so he took up art. As he said later, “Art in prison has two major advantages over most other educational pursuits. Firstly, it does not demand any previous academic achievements, not even basic literacy. Secondly, art exists for the moment, now.”

Artistic Convictions

In the new book, David Wootton’s excellent narrative, interspersed with Pete’s stories, tells the story of his journey from Walton Gaol to HM Prison Full Sutton, a high-security jail with a well-equipped art room, to entering three pictures in the 1990 Koestler Awards, and winning the Laura Ashley Prize for Watercolour with Pay Day. In 1991, he contributed two more paintings to the Koestler, The Last Slop Out and Now Then, which won the Koestler’s Painting Award.

This is not just a book of great pictures, it has great stories too. Pete’s descriptions of how his prison paintings came about are a revelation to anyone who hasn’t been to jail. The Last Slop Out is a take on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, for example. And he tells a shocking story about the Establishment cover-up of the murder of Police Sergeant John Speed in October 1984, which informs a series of works including the 1991 collage The Death of David Gricewith, the latter of whom was posthumously accused of the murder.

Released from prison in October 1992, Pete returned to Liverpool where he set up a studio with old friend, Liverpool artist David Knopov. Wootton takes us through the development of Pete’s style, different to his highly atmospheric prison work, but similarly embedded in the observation of people and their places.

Despite the diagnosis of Parkinson’s in 2003, Pete continues to work. It has gradually changed the way he paints; he tends to work in blocks of colour now, so, as Wootton says, the paintings resemble collage, but they are as vital and alive as ever. I finally went to visit him at his studio a couple of weeks ago. I would like to say he hadn’t changed a bit, but of course he has, as have we all. However, the charming, funny man is still there. We spent several hours looking at his work and chewing the fat, and I shall be going back for the launch of the book and to see more of his work this weekend. 

If you would like to meet the artist, Pete will be at Ryde in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon, and there will be original paintings largely from his prison period and affordable prints for sale. And, of course the book, which I think is a bargain at £35, and a great Christmas present.

By Chris Wallis

Main image: The Last Slop Out by Peter Cameron. Courtesy of the artist. 

 

For more information about Peter Cameron: Artistic Convictions, published by Sansom & Company, click here.

The launch of Peter Cameron: Artistic Convictions is at The Ryde Café, 5 Mann Street, Liverpool on November 22, 2025.