Photograph Taken from Facebook
Last week, on the 25th September the author Peter May died at his home here in France. His wife Janice announced his passing and there have been a deluge of tributes online and in newspapers, writing publications and other media outlets from everywhere.
I am a member of the Society of Authors and in April 2024 I took over as host on Zoom for the monthly meeting for the French Group. It’s called a local group but it is actually the whole of France. In November 2024 Peter joined our meeting on Zoom for the first time – at least the first time since I’d been hosting. He immediately became a regular and a firm favourite with all the other attendees.
Although I never met him in person, it soon seemed as though I’d known him for years and that he had become a friend. I think we all felt like that. He was a genuinely lovely man. Even though he was obviously the most successful and famous writer in our group he had no side to him. He shared invaluable insights into his writing process, always giving solid and helpful advice without ever sounding as though he knew more than we did — which he surely did. In May of 2025 he gave a wonderful author talk for us at our monthly meeting. He had an easy-going eloquence and we all hung on every word. I believe we ran a little over time because everyone had questions for him which of course he was more than happy to answer.
On Wednesday the 23rd September 2026 he attended our Zoom meeting and was his usual cheerful, talkative, informative self. When I saw that he had died only a couple of days later, I could not believe it. The world has lost a truly lovely person and I know that he will be very much missed by everyone who knew him, not least his Zoom friends at the local SOA meetings.
If you would like to read more about Peter, here are a couple of links:
