Our father, Peter Markey, who has died aged 86, was one of the leading figures in the world of contemporary automata and a prolific painter.
Born in Swansea, Peter was the son of Marie (nee Tuer) and Edgar Markey. Edgar was a trawlerman, and Peter and his twin sister, Pauline, would often look out from their house on Town Hill towards Swansea Bay, waiting for their father’s boat to appear before running down to meet him. The image of a solitary boat on the horizon became a recurring theme in Peter’s work. Even as a child he was always making things. He was also a good sportsman and once played opposite the future Welsh international footballer John Charles in a local youth match.
Peter studied at Swansea School of Art and also trained to be a teacher. His pacifist views might have led him to register as a conscientious objector, but to please his mother, Peter did his national service, spending two years in Aqaba, Jordan. This was to be a formative experience and a source of many amusing anecdotes in later life.
Peter’s first teaching post was in East Ham. In London, he met Beryl Owen, a potter at Chelsea Pottery. They married in 1956.
When he was looking for a more permanent job and a place to start a family, Peter’s attachment to the sea led him to take a post at Trescobeas secondary modern school (which in 1971 became Falmouth school), where he taught art and humanities. Peter was a hard working and dedicated teacher and deeply committed to comprehensive education. He was an active member of CND (a veteran of the Aldermaston marches), the Labour party and Friends of the Earth.
In 1980, Peter decided it was time to work for himself. He thought brightly painted wooden models might be easier to sell than paintings. He began to animate them using a simple crankshaft mechanism. These automata were among the first to be exhibited and sold at Sue Jackson’s shop Cabaret on Falmouth High Street, which moved to Covent Garden in 1985 and as Cabaret Mechanical Theatre still has permanent and touring exhibitions organised from south-west London.
In 1986 Peter and Beryl left Falmouth for Gellidywyll, a farmhouse on a mountainside near Llanbrynmair in Powys. There he continued to work with unrelenting energy until his mid-70s. The onset of Peter’s Alzheimer’s disease prompted a move to Frome in Somerset, to be near our sister, Ann.
Peter is survived by Beryl, their children, and seven grandchildren, Alice, Lily, Orla, Tom, Joe, Sean and Caitlin, and by his sister, Pauline.