Born in London in 1932, Peter attended St Ignatius College, a Jesuit school where film director Alfred Hitchcock had been a pupil. He studied philosophy and theology at the Westminster Seminary and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1956. He went for post-graduate philosophical studies at the Gregorian University, Rome, where his tutor was Fr Frederick Coplestone S.J., and to Oxford University where he studied modern linguistic philosophy under Professor A.J. Ayer.
For five years he was Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics at St Edmund's College, the major seminary of the diocese of Westminster and later Dean of Theology at Corpus Christi in London, an international School of Catechetics.
After Pope Paul VI banned all forms of contraception, Peter instigated a famous letter to The Times, signed by 55 dissident priests. Being told by Cardinal Heenan of Westminster that he would never again have a teaching post in the Catholic Church if he failed to comply with Vatican teaching, he left the priesthood in 1970 to become a Staff Producer for the BBC in London.
He became a full-time writer in 1978 when his first novel Bless me Again, Bless me, Father (Robert Hale), and four subsequent novels, written under the pseudonym Neil Boyd, were bestsellers. He adapted the books into a successful TV series, shown in about 35 countries.
After living for 30 years in County Wicklow, Ireland, he is now home in England and lives in Bournemouth.
Bibliography:
Comic Novels As Neil Boyd (All in paperback by Corgi)
Bless Me, Father 1977 Robert Hale
A Father Before Christmas 1978 Michael Joseph
Father in a Fix 1979 Michael Joseph
Father Under Fire 1980 Michael Joseph
Bless Me Again, Father 1981 Michael Joseph
Comic
Prayers for Pagans and Hypocrites (1977) Collins
TV sit-coms
Bless Me, Father (Three series 1978-1980) London Weekend TV
Religious
Christ and Original Sin (1967) Bruce USA
Jesus Who Became Christ (1975) Collins
Come Holy Spirit (1975) Collins
A Bible Prayerbook for Today (1976) Collins
Der Jesus Mythos (1997) Droemer Knaur (English: The Fatal Flaw of Christianity (2004)
Heidelberg
Blessed Among Women (2005) Columba Press Ireland
Fables
The Best of All Possible Worlds (1975) Argus Communications USA
The Bee & The Rose (1975) Argus Communications USA
Cloud Cuckoo Land (1975) Argus Communications USA
Novels
The Hidden Years (1984) Hodder & Stoughton (As Neil Boyd)
Pope Patrick (a novel about the first Irish Pope) (1995)
Poolbeg (Ireland) (1996) Transworld USA
History
Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy (1988) Transworld
Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 (1990) Transworld
Co-written
Forbidden Fruit: The story of Annie Murphy's love affair with Bishop Eamonn Casey (1993) Little Brown - USA and UK
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