Blue plaque salute to Buzzcocks’ Pete
A BLUE plaque to Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley has been fitted outside his childhood home.
The lasting memorial to the late punk pioneer takes pride of place outside the house, in Leigh, where he lived when he founded the iconic band.
The plaque, which has been provided by Wigan council, was unveiled on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the singer’s death.
Shelley was just 63 when he died of a suspected heart attack in December 2018. The rocker was born in Leigh in 1955.
He went on to form Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto in 1975 after the two met at the Bolton Institute of Technology and travelled to London together to see the Sex Pistols.
The punk outfit was best known for its hit single Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve).
Shelley also began working on solo material in 1974, but it remained unheard until 1980 when it was released on his own label, Groovy Records.
Buzzcocks were together until 1981, and later reformed in 1989.
Shelley also composed the theme music for the intro to the Tour de France on Channel 4. His music was used from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.
Following his death, fans launched the Pete Shelley Memorial Campaign to continue his legacy. The blue plaque was finally unveiled outside the singer’s former home in Landside, Pennington, by Malcolm Garrett, a designer who worked with Buzzcocks. Also in attendance at the ceremony were representatives of Shelley’s family and campaigners.
The plaque bears the rocker’s real name, Peter Campbell McNeish, alongside the description ‘songwriter, singer, guitarist and homosapien too, from Leigh, founder of Buzzcocks’.
Below is the quote ‘Life’s an illusion, love is a dream’, taken from the band’s song Everybody’s Happy Nowadays.
Paul Lally, from the Pete Shelley Memorial Campaign, said he hoped the memorial would help to inspire future generations of Leythers. “I come from Leigh myself and Buzzcocks were always my favourite band,” he said. “It made me feel proud that I shared the same hometown as Pete. That sort of feeling is how everyone in Leigh should feel.
“When I was younger, it was all cotton mills and coal mines. Pete showed it did not have to be that way. He was inspirational. It is important for future generations in this town to have something to aspire to.
“He has proved what can be done from nothing.”
Campaigners also hope to get the go-ahead for a mural to Shelley in Leigh town centre.