Since retiring in 2015 as a specialist in career change (job change and pre-retirement), Peter has volunteered as a guide at Fountains Abbey (which receives the fees for this talk). He has also presented a radio programme - a History of the World Special - based on his Uncle Bryn's 5 years in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The programme centred on a portrait in oils of Bryn's wife Peggy, which was painted, from a Red Cross postcard, by a Jewish prisoner during Bryn's 6 months in Auschwitz

Peter's talks reflect his interest in the history of Yorkshire, especially the devastation wreaked in the 12th Century during the Harrying of the North and the subsequent rebuilding, much of which was undertaken by the newly arrived monastic orders, especially the Cistercians whose abbeys (Riveaulx, Byland, Fountains, Jervaulx, Kirkstall, Sawley, Meaux and Roche), though magnificent ruins, are a reminder of their lasting influence on the Yorkshire landscape.