Biography

Who is this man 'Maxwell'?
He had the unlikely name of John Jiggens and startcd life as an RAF policeman but he had a talent to amuse and became a wandering minstrel, with the whole world as his stage.
He is better known to thousands of people in Eng]and, the former and current Commonwealth countries and America but particularly in the last outpost of the British Empire, Natal - as Peter Maxwell, pianist, Raconteur, mimic, balladeer, comedian and entertainer supreme.
He is one of the old school who, single handed, can hold an audience of 20 or 2000 in the palm of his hand, laughing and crying with him for two solid hours, or more.
Thanks to a marvelous talent for playing the piano, a fine voice, a sharp wit and an amazing penchant for telling a risqué joke devoid of smut, Peter has remained at the top of his profession for 60 years.
He is also friend and lover, husband and father, confidante and counselor, songwriter and poet, traveller and sailor and friend of the famous.
In case you know him by another name, these are some of the nicknames to which he has answered over the years: Sgt. Peter "Jiggy" Jiggens, Peter "Chatsby" Maxwell, England's Playboy, Mr Versatility, Peter-Penny Farthing Maxwell, Highest Paid unknown entertainer in Britain, The Entertainer, Have Talent will Travel. Keyboard Casanova, Playboy Pianist, Prime Minister of Mirth and Itinerant Piano Player.


Show Business? It was an Accident
Maxwell in the RAF Military Police Ruislip 1955	It happened by accident. A young Peter Maxwell was convinced his career lay within the relatively safe confines of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force - it had security, a fair amount of challenge and all an intelligent young man could need. But Peter ended up in show business, a career not noted for its permanence.
	"It wasn't obvious at the time, but when I think about it now, my God, was I lucky". This was a phrase Peter Maxwell was to use many times in the following 35 years.
	He had his mother, Ethel May Jiggens and his father, Cecil Stanley Jiggens to thank for his success as a piano player for, from the age of five, she made him practice three times daily.
But it was a beer bottle - yes, a beer bottle - that helped him become the complete artiste.
Playing with a friend, Norman Mason, at a river close to his home in Eastleigh, near Southampton, he cut his hand and to get it mobile again after micro surgery, he turned to his piano. In time he became a competent pianist, tackling the great Masters like Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Chopin.
But he never thought he would sing for his proverbial supper, and certainly not accompany himself for hours at the piano and have women hanging on his every word when he sang love songs and ballads.
He went with his parents each Sunday to their small Baptist Church and joined he choir. It turned out that he had one of the most extraordinary soprano voices. It is still soprano today and is not falsetto. It never broke. At the age of 19, just before entering the Royal Air Force he was still leading choir boy singing solo: "Oh for the Wings of a Dove."!

In the Choir 12th Sept 1942