Evergreen

112 EVERGREEN Autumn
During the 1960s a number
of pop acts enjoyed hits
with songs written by John
Lennon and Paul McCartney that
The Beatles themselves didn’t release
as singles. They include “Do You
Want to Know a Secret?”, “Bad to
Me” (Billy J. Kramer
and The Dakotas),
“It’s For You” (Cilla
Black), “Hello Little
Girl” (The Fourmost)
and “Like Dreamers Do” (The
Applejacks), although perhaps the
best of the lot — and certainly the
most successful — was the song
recorded by an Everly Brothers-type
duo that topped the charts in both
the UK and USA in April 1964: “A
World Without Love” by Peter and
Gordon. Such was the dominance of
the Fab Four at the time, it’s hardly
surprising that the song “A World
Without Love” replaced at number
one in the United Kingdom was…
“Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles!
Peter and
Gordon
Peter Asher, the older of the two,
was born on 22nd June 1944 in
London. His father, Richard Asher,
was a highly regarded physician,
described as “one of the foremost
medical thinkers of our times”, while
his mother, Margaret Augusta (née
Eliot), was a talented
musician and a professor
at the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama.
Peter had two younger
sisters, Jane and Claire, and with Jane
enjoyed an early career as a child
actor in a number of plays, films
and television productions: the two
of them appeared together in The
Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-1959)
in which Richard Greene played the
hero of Sherwood Forest.
Peter attended the prestigious
Westminster School, and it was
there that he met and became close
friends with Gordon Waller. Born
on 4th June 1945 (in Braemar,
Aberdeenshire), Gordon was also the