Peter Kent’s burial at Kensal Green Cemetery

A D-DAY landing war veteran and boxing coach was given a fitting send-off two months after celebrating his 100th birthday.

Peter Kent, who worked as a printer on the Sunday Times, was fondly remembered as a natural entertainer who lived in North Road, Holloway, for many years with his wife Rene and their two sons.

He devoted much of his retirement to fund­raising for various charities, often in his blazer and beret outside tube stations and at public events.

Mr Kent had worked as an instructor at the German Gymnasium in King’s Cross, the Belsize Boxing Club, and the Gainsford ABC in Drury Lane, Covent Garden.

Boxing champs including John Conteh, Tony Falcone and Chris Sanigar were among the mourners at burial in Kensal Green Cremator­ium earlier this month.

“His feet didn’t touch the ground until he had that haematoma,” said his son Stephen who had been caring for him since his health deteriorated in 2022. He died on June 22 from a chest infection.

Recalling his 100th birthday, Stephen said: “We was thinking about what to do and in the end it was taken out of our hands. Who done it? The Belsize Boxing Club – they set it up at one of his old haunts, The Union Jack Club in Waterloo. The taxi charity got involved too.”

Mr Kent was made a Freeman of the City of London for his charity fundraising work [Taxi Charity]

Peter went to St Patrick’s RC School, Soho, before joining the Royal Navy a week before his 18th birthday in 1943. He served as an Able Seaman on HMS Adventurer.

In Gary Bridson Daley’s Poetry and Portraits: Saluting our Second World War Generation, an article about his service reveals his role at Normandy “joining working parties on the beach” and helping with the logistics of bringing supplies from ships to landing troops.

He later travelled to Vancouver sharing a ship with repatriated Canadian PoWs, bringing troops back down Panama Canal through the Azores and finally back to Greenwich.

Mr Kent was among the founders of the London Ex-Boxers Association (LEBA) and became its vice-president.

He had after the war represented the Gainsford Amateur Boxing Club in Drury Lane and later became an instructor there. His brother Johnny was a pro-bantam weight attached to the club.

Steve Powell, LEBA’s current president, recalled the two brothers as a “throwback to the fifties, smartly dressed in white jumpers and old style tracksuit bottoms and flat soled plimsolls”.

Shortly after marrying Rene the Kents moved to North Road. Their two sons, Stephen and Johnny, went to Hungerford Primary School.

Mr Kent joined the Royal Navy a week before his 18th birthday in 1943

Stephen remembered his dad coming home with fish suppers from the old Dorrall’s chippy in Caledonian Road.

Peter was a regular at the Johnny Stanton’s gym in York Way and trained with a local legend boxer George Hollister.

Peter loved to take his family to watch films at the Odeon in Holloway Road and the old Essoldo picturehouse up the Cally. Stephen recalled: “My father also took us to the pie and mash shop at the bottom of Mackenzie Road, and brought our shoes from Henry’s shoe shop in Caledonian Road opposite Pentonville prison.”

Mr Kent, who lived in Pimlico at the end of his life, worked at the Times for 26 years, doing mainly night shifts.

Coming from a musical family, he was a regular at the Conservative Club in Argyle Square, King’s Cross, where traditional songs Sweet 16 and Yankee Doodle Boy were among his favourites.

He was presented with a Baton of Commemora­tion by Rishi Sunak when he was prime minister and enjoyed a breakfast with Sir Keir Starmer last November at an event celebrating veterans.

He was made a Freeman of the City of London for his fundraising for the Not Forgotten, Taxi Charity for Military Veterans and LEBA benevolent fund.

Dick Goodwin, vice-president of Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, said: “Peter was a true character, always ready with a song, a dance, a swirl of his walking stick and a smile.”