As founding chair of the Friends of Dronfield Station (FoDS), my friend Peter Hayward, who has died aged 81, helped bring back the railway station in north-east Derbyshire from a moribund state with an intermittent service in 2006 to a beautiful destination with hourly trains and more than 180,000 journeys made each year.
Peter started by visiting the local Labour MP, Natascha Engel, in Westminster to ask how to get a proper train service for Dronfield. She said: “We met the rail minister, Tom Harris, who went out of his way to ensure Dronfield featured in every franchise bid.” The station quickly became the heart of the town, with Dronfield in Bloom successes and regular art exhibitions from local schools.
Engel, who became president of FoDS, said: “The aim was for train passengers who had never been to Dronfield to look at the station and get off the train to visit.”
Born in Gosport, Hampshire, Peter was the eldest of three children of Elsie (nee Sheppard) and Thomas Hayward, a joiner and building inspector. He went to Andover grammar school and later joined the Air Scouts and achieved his Queen’s Scout award. While studying inorganic chemistry at Imperial College London he also became a glider pilot. At university he met Jill Parnell, who recalls that, typically, he took her to tea at Lasham airfield cafeteria. They were married in 1967.
Peter completed his PhD in 1968 and began post-doctoral research at Washington State University, in Pullman, taking Jill and their new baby with him. In 1970 the family returned to the UK, where Peter initially continued his research at Bristol University before moving to Dronfield and working in travel planning at Sheffield University, until he took early retirement in 2002 when the department downsized.
He was an active citizen of Dronfield, serving as a school governor, on the council of St Andrew’s church, as chair of the parish council and getting involved with the Civic Society. Members of the Rotary Club named him the town’s citizen of the year in 2009 and in 2010 Peter was appointed MBE for his service to the local community.
Peter enjoyed trekking on family holidays. In 2006, he and Jill visited Nepal, making further trips there in 2010, 2012 and 2016 with Birkdale school, Sheffield, as a fellow churchgoer was a teacher there. With a team from Sheffield University, he helped assess the structural damage following earthquakes and provided administrative support for school medical checks.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, in 2023 he went to live in a care home. His humour prevailed, though – when asked what activity he could suggest for the residents to do, his answer was gliding.
Peter is survived by Jill, their children, John, Thomas, Rachel and Elizabeth, and eight grandchildren.
