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successful Maiz Dulce team, the name
a reference to the sweetcorn produced
by Peter’s business.
Like most polo players, Peter took
a few knocks, but it was a fall in 2016 that
was to leave him fighting for his life.
Peter, now 66, was playing in an eight-goal
match at Cowdray when his horse lost its
legs. It wasn’t spectacular, and he should
have rolled away unscathed, but instead, his
head was speared into the ground, during
which Peter recalls suddenly seeing a ball of
orange light and then – nothing.
He was airlifted to hospital where
he was given a 10 per cent chance of survival
having suffered a severe brain bleed.
In a coma, he was transferred to a specialist
unit, where his long road to recovery began.
Amazingly, 15 weeks later, Peter was
discharged, but he was still far from his
normal self. A tracheotomy had left him
unable to speak or swallow properly and he
was in need of constant care as his cognitive
functions were severely compromised.
It was his wife Angela, at his side through
the darkest of days, who identified a solution
to kick-start the cogs in Peter’s brain. She
decided he needed a project, and, as this
was the ideal time to reflect on a life well
lived, she bought an autobiography service
from LifeBook, which was created by Roy
Moëd, chairman of Ranelagh Farm Polo Club.
Having never ridden a horse until the age
of 50, Roy started polo on Fat Boy and ended
up founding his own polo club and playing
against Peter at Cowdray.
A personally assigned interviewer
visited Peter at his home on a regular basis
to record his life story in his own words,
which was then written up in instalments
by a professional ghost-writer. Every couple
of weeks, Peter reviewed the story and made
amendments or additions where necessary.
The project gave him something positive
to focus upon but without the enormous
effort that would otherwise have been
entailed in such an undertaking.
Initially, it was tough. Peter’s voice would
tire and he would suffer from coughing
attacks, but his interviewer sat patiently,
and, as his composure regained, she gently
encouraged him to continue.
As memories flooded back and his
strength returned, Peter’s enthusiasm for
the project grew. Now, instead of dreading
the meetings as he had done at the start, he
actively looked forward to them. While
I T H E L P E D J O I N T H E P A S T
W I T H T H E P R E S E N T A N D ,
H O P E F U L LY, T H E F U T U R E
Peter’s body was physically recovering, his
LifeBook was becoming his own tailor-made
mental recuperation programme.
‘Writing the book was possibly the
biggest factor of my rehabilitation,’ says
Peter. ‘It got my brain going again, even
though, sometimes, my brain felt like
scrambled egg afterwards.’
Importantly, the project gave him the
chance to reflect on where he had come
from, what he had achieved and what was
important to him. ‘It helped join the past
with the present and, hopefully, the future.’
