ROYAL TOUR: Grosvenor, right, with the Queen and Prince Philip and Express chairman Victor Matthews

By ALAN FRAME

I am sorry to report that our old friend Peter Grosvenor, long-standing literary editor of the Daily Express, has died two months short of 93rd birthday. 

Peter joined the Express in 1962 when Beaverbrook was still alive and taking more than a passing an interest in his newspapers. He remembered one call in particular when the Beaver informed him: "Mr Grosvenor, we have more readers in the Social AB class than any other paper. So it's a very important job you do Mr Grosvenor.” There would have been a hint of menace in the Beaver's delivery. 

On another occasion the Old Man instructed him that it was time to write about the Soviet generals who had done more than any ally to defeat Germany. Peter duly rounded up various military memoirs from the Express bureau in Moscow (those were the days) and, not surprisingly, they were dull, dull, dull.  

Nobody, however heavy with gold braid, would have dared to outshine Stalin. So Peter enlivened his copy with sentences like: "Marshal Rossokovsky slapped the side of his T-34 tank and cried "The Reichstag or bust!" Or this gem: "General Valutin, vodka glass in hand, sneered: "That backsliding Montgomery wouldn't last five minutes in the Politburo"

He heard no more from his employer.

Peter Grosvenor was born in 1933 in Combe Down, Bath, to George, a successful builder, and Mollie. As a seven-year-old he contracted osteomylitis, a painful bone infection which left him bedridden for two years and accounted for his permanent limp. Antibiotics were scarce and in 1940 were needed for troops. He was educated at Monckton Combe School and went on to study politics and literature at Worcester College, Oxford where his bar bills caused his father some consternation. He then spent a year in the US on a Fullbright scholarship. 

Before the Express he worked for the Sketch and the News Chronicle and over the years interviewed Edward Heath, Harold Wilson and Barbara Cartland and ghost wrote the autobiography od Freddie Trueman. 

Peter married fellow journalist Rita Berger who had worked for the Mirror, the Evening Standard and The European. She predeceased him and they had three sons, Simon, Paul, and Matthew.

He was chairman of the Press Club in its centenary year when he had to entertain the Queen and Prince Philip along with Lord Matthews and on another occasion a young Prince Charles and, separately, Margaret Thatcher.

Peter celebrated his 90th birthday with friends and old colleagues at the Garrick where he was a competitive bridge player. He was also an enthusiastic golfer and was made captain of Royal Mid-Surrey in 1992.

His funeral will be at St Mary Magdelene, Richmond, south-west London, at 1.30 on February 5 and afterwards at Richmond Golf Club. Peter was captain of Royal Mis-Surrey in 1992. Transport from the church to the club will be provided.

AT DINNER: With Prince Charles and the Toastmaster

30 January 2026