Peter Collinge: 'Visionary' Liverpool hairdresser dies after beating virus

Peter Collinge had recovered from Covid-19 but but the illness "took its toll".

Veteran Liverpool hairdresser Peter Collinge has died at the age of 92 after being ill with coronavirus, his family has confirmed.

Andrew Collinge said his father had recovered from Covid-19 but the illness had taken “its toll”.

Peter Collinge began hairdressing in Liverpool city centre in 1942 at the age of 14, later opening his own group of salons.

“Sadly my father passed away peacefully in his sleep,” Andrew Collinge said.

“He had recently beaten Covid-19 but the virus took its toll on his general health and at the grand old age of 92 he was unable to recover.”

Peter Collinge joined the family business in West Derby in 1948, having also worked at sea on the Mauretania cruise ship, and opened his first salon in Liverpool city centre in 1954.

Collinge was a prolific competition hairdresser, winning competitions in the UK and Europe in the 1950s.

By the late 1960s there was a group of Peter Collinge salons within Merseyside and he was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to hairdressing and training.

Since the 1990, the salon group, now called Andrew Collinge, expanded into Chester and Manchester with Peter as life president.

Andrew Collinge thanked NHS staff and paid tribute to his father, describing him as "a visionary in the hairdressing world", whose legacy "lives on" in hairdressers and training schools.

He added that his "wonderful" father, grandfather and great-grandfather would be "greatly missed".