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Sir Peter Blake

The Dazzle Alphabet
One of the best known British Pop artists, Peter Blake was born in 1932. Perhaps most well known for designing the album cover of St Pepper's lonely Heart's Club Band for the Beetles, he also created two of The Who's album covers and Stop The Clocks for Oasis.

Blake attended Maypole school Bexley and Dartford West Central. He lived in a house on Princes Road and then in 1937 a newly built semidetached house at 9 Marcus Road costing £600 at the time! He remembers the town park and library and recalls his family were involved in the Congregation Church. Blake describes Dartford being 'run by the Co-op' and a 'Co-op town'. At the age of 7 he was evacuated to Essex and later to Worcester. At the age of 14 he got a place at Gravesend Technical College as unlike his siblings he did not pass the 11+.  Blake recalls from this age visiting the jazz club opposite the railway and the Railway Tavern.

He describes his experiences of Dartford in an audio recording of The British Library,
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