New book recalls death of Lancashire Post journalist murdered by terrorist in Cyprus

He started his career on his home town paper, the Lancashire Evening Post, and moved on to work in Manchester and London, later deciding to freelance his way round the world as his followed his wanderlust.

Along with his roots, Preston left a notable additional mark on him personally, as he met his fiancee Mary Williams while working on the Post – and the couple pledged to marry on day as he took a dream job on the Times of Cyprus late in 1956.

But fate intervened in the most horrific fashion just three weeks into Peter’s new job, as he was murdered by a terrorist while queuing to buy a cinema ticket.

Cyprus was at the time a troubled island, in the midst of an often violent battle for independence and the British were seen as particular target.

The vacancy Peter filled on the Times of Cyprus was due to the murder of another journalist.

With the British Consul in Cyprus unable to immediately contact Peter’s father, it was Mary who was informed of his death by heart-breaking telegram and she soon went out to Cyprus to try and find out more about what happened.

She settled there, married and had a daughter, Wendy Skorupski, who has now recalled the story of her mother and her lost love in a new book.

"To this day I still have the telegram that my mother received on December 9, 1956, informing her of the murder of her fiancé Peter Donald Fox,” said Wendy, who lives and works in Poland.

“My mother used to say that the day Peter died, something in her died, too.

"Maybe it was these words, heard so often throughout my upbringing in Cyprus, Vienna and Preston, that provided the inspiration for the book I always knew I would write one day.”

While Peter worked as a reporter on the Post, Mary – nicknamed ‘Molly’ – was employed as an assistant to then secretary of the Football league, Alan Hardaker, when the League was still based in Starkie Street, Preston, before its 1960 move to St Annes.

Molly was often sent on errands to the Post’s headquarters, then on Fishergate, and that was where she met Peter.

One day, he invited her to a party at his flat on Winckley Square, which he shared with the cartoonist Leo Baxendale.

They fell in love and would often meet in Brucciani’s coffee shop – still on Fishergate - and go to concerts at the old Town Hall.

On New Year’s Eve 1950, Peter proposed to Molly, she said yes, but Peter was ambitious, and Molly stubborn, and their long, turbulent relationship never resulted in the proverbial tied knot.

Soon, Peter left Preston to work in Manchester, then London and later saved enough money to buy a plane ticket to Cyprus, where a friend of his lived in the fishing town of Kyrenia.

Within Peter’s first days on the island, the Times of Cyprus journalist Angus McDonald was shot dead by a Greek-Cypriot terrorist from the guerrilla group EOKA, infamous for its ruthlessness against Britons.

Peter was drafted into the vacancy on the paper but just three and half weeks later was killed.

After receiving the notice of Peter’s death, Molly, who died in 2012, aged 82, placed Peter’s obituary in the Lancashire Evening Post, ending with the message: ‘Forever remembered, from his Beloved Chubs’.

The Post published this tribute to Peter: “Peter Fox was a journalist with a mission. He wanted to see the world but his career was cut short at the age of 30, by an assassin’s bullet in the Cypriot town of Kyrenia.

"Peter joined the editorial staff of the Post as a touth from Preston Grammar School and graduated to editing the feature pages. During that spell, he served with the British Army in Egypt. He did not like Army life, along with so many others but his experiences fired him with a tremendous zeal for travel.

"When he returned to the Post, he saved every penny he could to enable him to spend his holidays travelling in Europe. Tall, handsome and with a considerable charm of manner, he could have been a notable figure in social life, but he chose to live very modestly, gathering together the money for his travels.

"in 1952, he followed the well-trodden path from the Post sub-editors’ desk to Manchester and London. He never forgot his friends on the Post when he visited his home town and never swerved from his ambition to make a world tour and write of his experiences.

"While in London, he evolved a plan to work hard scraping together every penny he could for a year then he would head eastwards on his ‘Grand Tour’.

"Shortly after arriving in Cyprus on his freelance career, he stepped into a vacancy of the staff of the Times of Cyprus, created when Angus Macdonald was shot dead on the way to the office the previous November.

"From then on, Peter was a marked man. He was buying a cinema ticket when a gunman opened fire on him with an automatic weapon. Shortly after, he died in hospital, the 91st victim of EOKA terrorists.

"News of his death was received in Preston by Miss Mary Williams of Talbot Road, off Hartington Road, Preston.

"Miss Williams and Peter had hoped to marry when he returned to this country. Police made four arrests in connection with investigations into the murder of Peter Fox, reported the Reuter news agency.”

Peter’s untimely death changed Molly’s life forever. She flew out to Nicosia to visit his grave in the British Cemetery, and ended up staying in Cyprus.

A year later, she married the friend who Peter had been visiting - a Polish ex-refugee turned journalist, who had previously worked for the Oldham Evening Chronicle as well as briefly at the Post.

"That's how Peter met him - though my mother never did until she went to Cyprus,” said Wendy.

"The marriage was very much of the 'rebound category' and didn't work out, but at least I was born as a result!

"But she never forgot her beloved Preston reporter, and neither have I.

"Molly never did like the nickname of ‘Chubs’ that Peter gave her.

"It made her sound ‘chubby’ but she preferred to think she was ‘a bit on the Marilyn Monroe side’.”

Wendy Skorupski is co-owner of the British International School of Cracow, which was founded in 1995.

Her book is called Infinite Stranger and is a fictionalised account of Peter and Molly’s relationship, although retaining their real names.

In it, Molly and Peter's ill-fated and turbulent love story is featured in 1950s flashbacks, as a backdrop to the main storyline, set in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

It is available via Amazon.