ith a whimsical column, which started life as a space filler in the Saturday edition of the daily Sheffield Telegraph and continued beyond his retirement from The Star until not long before his death.

Editor of The Star, Alan Powell said: "Peter's column will be sadly missed. The columns began as a means of filling a hole, and ended leaving a hole which simply cannot be filled. They were unique."
The Harvey column brought Peter fan mail from across the globe, which he would invariably answer in person, even in retirement. Its fame even reached Buckingham Palace.

When Peter went to the Palace in 2002 to receive the MBE for services to journalism and the community from the Queen he was surprised to be approached by a Beefeater in full regalia who said he had deliberately sought him out.

It turned out the Beefeater had a Sheffield connection, regularly read the Harvey column, and wanted to tell him how much he enjoyed it.

While most people knew him because of his column, Peter Harvey already had a distinguished career before his column began being published.

He joined the Sheffield Telegraph from Woodhouse Grammar School as a trainee reporter in 1951, starting out on what was then the nightly ritual of touring the city's fire, ambulance and police stations, hospitals and mortuary on foot to pick up items of news.

A year later he began his two-year National Service, serving with the Intelligence Corps in Malaysia and Singapore.

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After returning to the Sheffield Telegraph he became head of the newspaper's Chesterfield office, and it was in Chesterfield that he met his wife, May, an actress, after going to review a play in which she was appearing at the town's Civic Theatre.

Returning to Sheffield, Peter became one of the reporters from the Sheffield Telegraph who covered the infamous 'Rhino Whip Scandal', which blew the lid on assaults by the police on prisoners arrested in the city.

Peter Harvey became the Sheffield Telegraph's chief reporter in 1960 and, at the age of 28, was appointed municipal correspondent, a post he held until becoming features editor.

The column began when something was needed to fill a hole in the paper on Saturdays, became a daily feature of what was, by then, the Morning Telegraph, and transferred to The Star after the Morning Telegraph's closure in 1986.

"I just wrote the first thing that came into my head," said Peter, who described his column as "all amiable nonsense, really".
At times, Peter would enlist his family to come up with ideas for his column - in addition to searching through old bookshops and bric-a-brac stores to help him satisfy his passion for collecting postcards and penknives.

It was the postcards that first led to Peter Harvey's success as an author.

A local publisher who had admired one of the postcards, used to illustrate a newspaper article, approached Peter to see if he had any more - he had about 8,000 in all - and the first of a series of books was the result.

In addition to the postcards, Peter produced a guide to the origins of Sheffield street names, which has been seen as his most enduring contribution to Sheffield's understanding of its past.

Peter, who described himself as "an obsessive list maker", also produced 'The Sheffield Obituary' which lists all the notable and notorious individuals from the city who merited obituaries in the local papers between 1850 and 1975.

Peter leaves May, their children Simon and Jane, and four grandchildren.
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