Tony Cummings spoke at length to a seminal figure in the development of UK Christian music, 74 year old singer/songwriter PETER LEWIS

In 1968 Tower Records released 'Sing About Christmas', a solo EP of Peter singing some original Christmas songs and the same year Pollen Studios released a single, "Let's Go Great/The Master's Touch", credited Peter Lewis With Sunday At Eight. By this time Peter had given up his work in industry to become a full-time musical troubadour. He remembered, "I would go to a parish, the people of the congregation would put me up - give me a bed, feed me. Some funny things happened there. When people meet you on the doorstep, and you're about to stay in their house for the first time, the things they ask you are very funny. The first one is, 'When are you going?' And the second one is, 'Would you like a bath?' You could take both of those the wrong way. But I stayed with many a lovely congregant - all sorts of denominations. I'd stay with them, I'd sing in the local schools in the week, then my group - they had other jobs - would come and join me at the weekend to perform on the Saturday night at a concert and to lead worship in the church on a Sunday."

In 1969 The Liverpool Raiders released another EP, 'The Rock'. Like its predecessor, it was in the Joseph Weinberger catalogue. More and more of Peter's work involved going into schools. He recalled, "I would sing in the assembly of a school for about a thousand kids, and I'd sing on topics like freedom, truth, love, family - general themes like that: I've not mentioned God all the way through. After the assembly, I'd ask the headmaster, 'If there's any young people who'd like to ask me a question, feel free'. More often than not, the first question that came up wherever I went and sang in the school was some young lad near the back, 'Please sir, do you believe in God?' I thought, 'That's very interesting: why are they asking me that? I've not mentioned God.' There was something maybe in the way I presented things that gave people a hint I was there not just to amuse them with songs: there was something deeper to it. My answer always was, 'No, I don't believe in god'. There'd be this terrible gasp! I'd go on to explain that this god he was talking about, I didn't believe in. I'd try to explain what this loving God who we find in Jesus was all about."

In 1969 Peter recorded an album distributed widely into Christian bookshops for Pilgrim Records, the offshoot of the long established Marshall Morgan & Scott publishers, 'Sing Life, Sing Love'. Remembered Peter, "Out of the blue I got a letter from Frank Waller at Pilgrim Records saying, 'We'd like you to record'. I suspect someone had been to one of the concerts and thought, 'This guy's worth recording'."

Among the musicians Pilgrim booked to accompany Peter for the 'Sing Life, Sing Love' sessions was renowned jazz guitarist Ike Isaacs, who'd worked with such luminaries as Barney Kessel and Stéphane Grappelli. Said Peter, "I was flabbergasted when I realised one of my session musicians was going to be THE Ike Isaacs. He's got sets of guitar strings named after him and all sorts! He's a Jew, obviously. The musicians did a wonderful job: we really gelled in that studio."

American Jesus music expert Ken Scott writing about 'Sing Life, Sing Love' commented, "British folk singer joined here by a small combo providing a light beat along with guitar, organ, piano and bass. Lewis has a particular love for Sydney Carter, covering five of his songs here. Also four Lewis originals including the title track (which he also performed on the Reflection label's 'Hosanna: A Portrait Of Us All') and my personal favourite 'Dazzling New And Super You'."

Peter did a number of concerts with folk music icon Sydney Carter, best known for his compositions "Lord Of The Dance" and "The Crow On The Cradle". Commented Peter, "Sydney was a remarkable guy - I think he would have called himself an agnostic; many of his songs do rather sit on the fence. I once sang in the crypt at St Martin In The Field and I was sharing that gig with Sydney Carter and, would you believe, Spike Milligan."

In 1970 the third Liverpool Raiders EP 'A Chance To See' was released and the following year Weinberger's Tower Records released the rather clumsily titled 'Give Yourselves To Me: Pete Lewis Singing New Hymns & Sacred Songs'. Peter chose the songs he would record. "Of all the 20th Century hymnbooks that the Church Light Music Group produced, I would think in each book probably a third of the total number of songs were ones that we performed." The front sleeve of the album sported a photo of Peter surrounded by pupils from Bradford City High School. About the album Ken Scott wrote, "Sixteen additional folk songs featuring acoustic guitars, bass, drums, piano and occasional organ. Songs are selected from the repertoire of the group 20th Century, including several written by Geoffrey Beaumont (ie, Father Beaumont). Sample titles are 'Jesus The Giver Of All', 'Cold Was The Moon', 'Darkness Surrounds me', 'We Have Danced Along' and 'There's A Lot Of Good Things In The Earth'. His version of Beaumont's 'There Is God' sounds pretty close to his earlier mid-'60s recording of the same song [by] the beat group The Liverpool Raiders."

By the early '70s things had changed again for The Liverpool Raiders and indeed for the whole Liverpool music scene. The golden era of The Beatles, Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas, Gerry & The Pacemakers and others had passed. The Liverpool Raiders became an electric folk group not dissimilar to another band of Christian Liverpudlians who in 1971 had an unexpected chart hit under the name Parchment.

After The Liverpool Raiders Peter headed a band called The Happy Medium, which included himself, Rod Brown and Sue Pilling, both from the Manchester area. When they disbanded Peter sang with an aggregation of musicians which went by the name of Family Folk. They came from all parts of the UK. Some of the musicians who passed through the Family Folk ranks were Ian Powell and Barbara Webber both from South Wales, Tina Sherwood from Stamford, Carol and Margaret both from Manchester, Brenda, Phil, David all from Sheffield, Joy Osborn and Helen both from Coventry, Rob Carey, Gill Edwards and Doug Hemingway, all from York, Roz from London and Tess Somerfield and Liz Bell, both from Nottingham.

Family Folk ministered around the local churches. Explained Peter, "We had that word Family in the title for a good reason: we always insisted whatever we did in the churches you could bring everybody along to. That's the one thing I think the Church has that no other organisation has - or the Church should have - is that ability for the whole family to do something together." Family Folk made some recordings though nothing was ever released and, by the '80s, had played their last concert. Travelling troubadour Peter continued on as a solo, playing churches and schools wherever he was asked.

Peter (second from left) with Radio Sheffield's Live-ish team

For a period Peter joined a mixed Christian community at Scargill House in the Yorkshire Dales. In 1975 he moved to Sheffield in 1975 at the invitation of the then Anglican Diocesan Youth Officer Rev David Benson which made life a bit easier for the singer/songwriter when it came to getting to the South and East coasts and Scotland.

I asked Peter how he'd got a living out of music. He responded candidly, "I never got a living out of it. When I got to 60 and looked at getting a pension, needless to say I'd not paid my stamps. My dad had very kindly helped me, organised me a bit, got me to pay some of my national insurance stamps. But when it came to pension time, I discovered I'd got half the number of stamps I should have. So I was on a very reduced pension. But praise the Lord, back in the '70s I wrote a children's song, 'Each Day Different' (sometimes known as 'Sunday, Monday, Tuesday'), which is sung in just about every primary school in this country, and all over the world. The money that comes in from that one song makes up the money I need to live on."

Amazingly the singer/songwriter still performs, at churches, old people's homes and anywhere else where people are keen to hear songs from his vast repertoire. One particularly memorable performance Peter recalled was on the Praise Bus at the time of the 2012 Olympics. He recalled, "I sang on the Praise Bus ahead of the Olympic Flame. I now live in Sheffield and the particular leg I was going on was from Sheffield to Cleethorpes. These other groups who I'd never met in my life before came on the bus with me; instantly - a wonderful thing about the way the Lord works - music just gels you somehow. You'd really think, when people listened to us as we played on the bus - we're in a good mood, clapped, got involved - I'm sure they thought we were a regular group, that we'd all played together for years." As well as his occasional live performances, Peter is planning the release of a single for Christmas 2015. The 74 year old is also very active on the internet. He said, "I live on Facebook these days. A lot of people are worried about Facebook - and rightly so. I run a group on Facebook called Liverpool Reminiscences 1940 Onwards. I'm very aware that a number of my contemporaries are now dead - so we better hurry up if we're going to get anything together. Everybody loves to reminisce. Particularly because I was right at the heart of the Beatles scene, there's a lot been documented about the Beatles, surrounding the Beatles; we spend time now pouring over photos of kids in the Cavern, trying to see if I was one of them." Peter is also a regular contributor to a programme on Radio Sheffield called Live-ish. "It's a comedy programme really," he explained.

Peter attends the Swallownest Baptist Church and Aston Parish Church. He said ruefully, "I was brought up an Anglican, and I'm now called, in our village, an Anglican Baptist - because I go to the Anglican church on Wednesdays and the Baptist church on Sundays. I spend all my time in the Anglican church telling them about how wonderful the Baptist church is and when I'm at the Baptist church, telling them about the wonders of the Anglican church. After attending the Baptist church for the last couple of years, they did know of my past, but nobody invited me to do anything - I was getting quite peeved - until this Christmas. They said, 'Would you like to do us a song in the carol service?' I gave the guy who told me a big hug and said, 'I thought you'd never ask!' I wrote this song some years ago - 'Peace Peace', a Christmas song. They said, 'We want something on the sort of joy joy theme', so I added an extra verse about joy joy. 'At Christmas time the baby was born/His mother Mary kept him warm/At Christmas time the baby was born/And shepherds came to worship him/Worship, worship, let's sing for him a worship song/Worship, worship, let's tell everyone...'."

Down the decades this extraordinary skiffle musician-cum-rock'n'roller-cum-folk-singer-cum-children's-songwriter has done and continues to do his best to tell everyone about Jesus at every opportunity.