Peter UK, AKA “PUK”

Doc just dropped the name PUK in another thread. I started to explain to new readers who PUK was and I decided to make a post about him.

Peter UK was a reader and prolific commenter on iOwnTheWorld.com, the name of this site before we changed to iOTWreport (that’s another story.)

I was introduced to Peter by Clarice Feldman of the Just One Minute blog. (I met Clarice through Thomas Lifson, the editor of American Thinker. Clarice is a prolific contributor at AT.)

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Clarice knew that iOTW contributors were big into music. She said that Peter UK was a musician and that we’d probably find him interesting.

Well, not only was Peter a brilliant commenter (sarcastic, dry, ironic, subtle and insightful) he had a legitimate rock and roll pedigree.

Peter turned out to be Peter Bocking, and a little internet research revealed that he was the guitarist in a band (The Fourtones) that changed their name and became a huge success.

Peter was the Pete Best of The Hollies.

Peter left the group to form The Pete Bocking Six (who opened for The Beatles in Manchester) just months before The Hollies broke big. (Later on Peter became the guitarist for Lonnie Donegan.)

Peter never said a word about any of this.

We emailed frequently, because I usually worked well into the early mornings, and it wasn’t at all unusual to get emails at 3AM (because of the time difference.)

It was January of 2010 late  late 2009, we were going back and forth with some rant about the left when the email stopped for the night. I never heard back. He didn’t show up at iOwnTheWorld the next day.

We suspect that Peter passed away at the age of 66 that night.

His last email said, “make the bastards live by their beliefs.”

That line was put on the PUK (Peter UK) Award Statuette. The PUK award was the contest we hosted in his honor for the best Political Agitprop of The Year.

Here’s a link to Legal Insurrection’s William Jacobson, who judged our inaugural contest.

We miss Peter UK.

Here’s a great round-up of quotes Peter made over at Just One Minute.

Our friend, Jeff Dobbs, put this together.