Wendy Peters recounts life as model, actress, storyteller

The B.C. Catholic



Having a birthday only every four years makes a Victoria grandmother feel young.

Wendy Peters, born Feb. 29, 1932, is turning 21 in 2016, thanks to the solar system and the Gregorian calendar.

“I just feel delightfully young at heart and soul and spirit and I love every moment of living here with the family,” said Peters on the phone with The B.C. Catholic from Victoria, where she lives with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren.

“I feel delightfully young. I can do a lot of stuff. I don’t stop.”

Peters, who would later become an actress, model, dancer, and writer, grew up in England in the ’30s with her parents and four siblings.

“As a child, I always used to cry: when is my birthday? They would laugh and say: ‘you’re just a baby, you’re not having one,'” she recalled.

Though Peters was at the top of her class and excelled in singing and gymnastics, childhood was tough. She and her siblings were orphaned at age 11.

A grandmother who hadn’t kept in touch with the family moved to live with them. She didn’t care for the children and money was tight, so Peters decided to take her talents elsewhere.

“I was told London was paved with money,” she said. “I went there to look for work. I started off doing modelling, then did a few films, and I was doing very well there.”

Peters flew as far as France and Spain during her acting career, performing in commercials and films including the 1959 comedy The Captain’s Table.

She was also a talented tap dancer and singer and enjoyed performing in a pantomime. She would also sing outdoors, alone save for the trees and few birds. It’s something she still likes to do.

“I go in the woods and I think about what I used to do and I try to sing, and whistle, too.”

Peters became Miss England in 1958. “I was older than I should have been to enter,” she said. “I decided not to tell anybody that I only had a birthday every four years!”

After taking the stage in a bathing suit, she was found out and disqualified; Miss England was not allowed to be married.

Decades later, Peters moved to Victoria, B.C., to live with her daughter. That’s when her successes in writing really picked up.

She published several poems and short stories, including The Rabbit Who Wore Shoes and Swanella, Child of the Swans. The latter, published in a book of short stories, was about a girl who grew up with swans and thought she was one of them. Peters always hoped it would become a short film.

“It was something I wanted to write that was gentle and soft like my mother. My mother always reminded me of swans.” Some of her published works have awards to their names.

Her family members hold a birthday celebration for her Feb. 28 on the years Feb. 29 doesn’t exist.

“We’ve had fun with it,” said her daughter, Laura Pearse. “We sang ‘You are 16, going on 17,’ to her on the half-way point between the two.”

The energetic grandmother said she’s looking forward to her 21st birthday, which will be a surprise. Now that she is at the legal drinking age in the U.S.A., will she go to Vegas?

“Why not?”