Interview with Bob Peters (L 84-89)

Bob Peters, a former Sedbergh School scholar, has been a great supporter of the School. He kindly agreed to share his experiences at School and in business.

You were at Sedbergh 1984 – 89 in Lupton House. What was Sedbergh like in those days?

When you compare it to now it was a lot more spartan. If you were last back to the changing rooms after a rugby match you’d be getting into a bath that was brown, and full of mud, because ten other boys had gone in before you. It was tough environment, particularly to come in as a day boy as I did through the bursary system. I’d left my friends in Sedbergh town to become a ‘Sedbergh School boy’ so they felt I wasn’t one of them, but at the same time the Sedbergh School boys didn’t accept me straight away because I was a local. It was very personable, though – class sizes were very small. My history class had just five or six of us in the class. I have really happy memories of being here, and I got a lot out of it.

How did your Sedbergh education prepare you for later life?

It instilled the values which I hold today: kindness, a toughness, a humility, confidence, knowing right from wrong, and a discipline that has been really important throughout my life. It didn’t necessarily prepare boys for the career route I took but the values have been important to me.

You left School in 1989. What did you do after leaving School?

The first thing I did was head to the north of Cornwall with lots of Sedberghians. We spent two or three weeks there partying, having fun, and pretending to surf, and then I didn’t have any connection with Sedbergh for over 20 years.

I didn’t want at that time to be part of the ‘Old Boy’ network. For many years I didn’t want to have anything to do with Sedbergh and had a real chip on my shoulder about it. When people found out that I’d been to private school they thought I was a bit of ‘posh boy’ and that irked me, because I’m not a ‘posh boy’. I came to Sedbergh on a bursary and my mum, Val Varley, worked so hard to look after us. She was a cook in Winder for years, and a matron, and did every job going at School. The other boys I was at Sedbergh with would go off on exotic holidays in the summer, and my brother and I would spend the summer holiday cleaning toilets at Killington Services to save money for our family. At the end of the summer we’d go camping in the Channel Islands with mum – different from the holidays of the boys I was at school with, but they were the best holidays. People assume I had a silver spoon, but I’ve never been gifted anything, other than my bursary. I’ve always had a strong work ethic, ever since my mum and stepfather were running the Cross Keys at Cautley, and my brother and I were coming home from Sedbergh School in the evening as day boys and going straight out waiting on tables and washing up in the kitchen. I’ve worked very hard all of my life.

When I became successful with my travel business I felt it was time to re-engage. I’ve always had a connection with Sedbergh, my mum still lives here and so I’ve always visited, this is home for me. Coming back in my early 40s I started to catch up with the old Masters, and got involved with the OS Club and the School. I don’t have children and have to spend my money somehow, giving back to the Roger Lupton Scholarship and Bursaries Scheme really appealed to me. I was given a bursary and I’m really grateful for that. I wanted to use my money to do some good.

How did your early career experience lead you to the business you have today?

I spent 15 years working at TrailFinders essentially doing my ‘apprenticeship’, working with the first class and business class customers. My skill set lay very much in the luxury end of the market, working with people who spent anywhere between £5000 and £500,000 on their holidays. I was fortunate that when I set up my own company many of those clients moved with me so I had a ready-made portfolio of clients from day one. That was humbling. People invest in people and I felt honoured that the clients had enjoyed working with me, and were confident that I could provide that service when I set up business by myself.

I feel blessed that I have the perfect work-life balance, I love what I do. I love getting up in the morning and helping people book their holidays. My role at ‘Bob Peter’s Travel Counsellors’ has changed over the last few years, in that I built up a team of other travel counsellors who work with me, and they are the ones who now have direct contact with the clients and I’m now in a business development role bringing in new clients, getting referrals. As such, I’ve stepped back and let my team take the reins.

I now look after around 30 OS, facilitating their own travel arrangements. They love that they’re being looked after by an OS, and I love that I’ve reconnected with them and can give back by providing a service for them.

Why is Bob Peters’ Travel Counsellors unique?

Our clients trust us because we will go the extra mile to find the best solution and the best fares. If we spot that there’s a fare the day before that would save a client £500 then we’ll highlight that. We always look at the long game, if you look after clients and give them a good service then they’ll be loyal and they’ll tell their friends.

We work with celebrities planning their bespoke luxury holidays, but also with ordinary people organising a special holiday that fits their needs. I’ve never had a request that we haven’t been able to fulfil. Whatever a client wants from their holiday we find a way to provide it. Everything we do is personalised, we’re not restricted by only using partner hotels or airlines in the way that other travel companies are. We can book anything, anywhere, anytime.

One of the more unusual things I’ve done was during COVID-19. Two weeks into lockdown I had a call from a friend asking if I could support one of her friends with a travel issue. I was perplexed as no one was travelling anywhere at that point. The next thing I knew I was organising the travel for twenty rocket scientists from Space X who were at Lake Como in Italy and needed to get to Orlando. Over the next three years I did five rocket launches, transporting the scientists on a mixture of private jets and commercial flights, together with their accommodation and car hire to get everyone in the right place at the right time. My work is incredibly varied and unlikely but we’re willing to take on anything and always find solutions.

Looking back, bizarrely, COVID-19 was the best thing to have happened to my business. Martin Lewis from Money Saving Expert highlighted the company as the best in the country in terms of ensuring that all of our clients got all of their money back for COVID-hit holidays, and within a short timescale. We are ATOL protected, so none of our clients lost a penny. Our clients were raving about the service they’d received and that had a snowball effect. As the world opened up again, not only were we inundated with enquiries from people we’d worked with before who were re-booking, but those people had also generated a wave of new referrals, as they were telling all of their friends about the service they’d received.

Your company Bob Peters’ Travel Counsellors is a major sponsor of Sedbergh Alumni events. Why is it important to you to give back to Sedbergh?

My brother and I benefitted from the bursary system at Sedbergh, and ultimately, it’s the right thing to do to give back. Sedbergh is still home to me, and to be able to give back to my hometown is important, it draws me back.

Many of my contemporaries from Sedbergh are now parents of pupils here and it’s wonderful to reconnect with them and remain part of the community. By sponsoring events, such as those I’ve sponsored recently in both Sedbergh, and at Lord’s Cricket Ground on the 3rd October 2025, I’m helping keep that community going and that’s important to me.