Category:Peter McArdle

Peter McArdle was born in 1937 in the Dingle, Liverpool. Leaving school at fifteen with no academic qualifications, he was apprenticed to his uncle Phil, a painter and decorator. In 1957 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a medical orderly at a military hospital in Scotland. (National Service). There he was set on the road to an education, first with Army Level 3, then Army Level 2, certificates in education. Awards in Basic nursing and First Aid were to follow.

On leaving the Army for Civvy Street, Peter worked as an Operating Theatre Assistant at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, before a complete change with two years as a student for the Roman Catholic Priesthood where, for Peter, The Latin was just A Bridge Too Far'. There now followed a stint in Residential Child Care.

Moving to Kent in 1967 he met Maria, a Library assistant at the local Whitstable Library, proposing a week later in Canterbury Cathedral on the very flag stones where Thomas Á Becket had been murdered. (He was always quite 'the romantic'!) They were married in 1968.

In 1969 Peter joined Kent County Council Social Services Department as a Child Care Officer. This included working with families, the elderly and people with disabilities, before being employed as Assistant Training Officer, then onto further and adult education as a lecturer and course tutor in Social Care at Thanet College, Broadstairs, Kent.

In 1983 he became the Founder and together with two colleagues, a trustee of a small charity, The St Anthony of Padua Foundation, set up to assist the independence of people with disabilities of all ages, and for the relief of poverty. In February 2025, the charity celebrated its 42nd year.

Over time, besides a number of Social Care and Teaching qualifications, Peter obtained a BA Degree at the Open University, a Certificate in Education from the University of London, and later a Diploma in Theology and a Distinction in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Peter, a competent pianist, now struggling to learn to play the ukulele, enjoys writing, reading and listening to classical music. He and Maria live in Dorset not far from the New Forest and bracing sea breezes of the Jurassic Coast. Together they share their love of gardening with their two feisty, independent cats: the regal, Queen Bambi, a Bengal and Pixie, a cheeky (house wrecker) Munchkin cross.