Peter Doherty

Peter Doherty was born in Hexham, and led a peripatetic life during his childhood years, driven by his father’s army career. One of his first jobs was as a gravedigger, and his teenage years were driven by a passion for football, music, literature and writing. Eventually he formed The Libertines with Carl Barât, released the iconic Up The Bracket in 2002, and enjoyed international success thereafter. Peter became a major public figure, but not always for the right reasons, and entered a long period of notoriety for substance misuse. He formed another band – Babyshambles – and a further iconic album, Down In Albion. In 2007, Orion published his journals (The Books of Albion: The Collected Writings of Peter Doherty) and in the same year he exhibited a collection of his paintings for the first time. More recently, Peter released The Fantasy Life of Poetry and Crime with French musician Frédéric Lo. He lives in France.

Photo credit: Roger Sargent