Relationships Talk

They are both well accustomed to telling elaborate stories through music, dance and spectacle, but for their own love story singer Peter Corry and his choreographer wife Fleur Mellor chose to keep things simple and sweet.

And so moved was Liverpool-born Fleur by the humanist-inspired proceedings of their wedding in Italy last year which was conducted by their friend, Northern Ireland actor/director Ian McElhinney, that she has now embarked on a career as an accredited humanist UK wedding celebrant so others can experience the same personal touch on their big day.

Fleur says: “It wasn’t officially a humanist ceremony. But it made me aware that there was another way and when I put it to Peter he loved the idea. Obviously we had a hand in putting it together with Ian McElhinney, our celebrant, and we were all involved in that process.

“It is certainly something that inspired me to go on and do my formal training. So I am now an accredited wedding celebrant for Humanist UK. And with the recent changes in the laws I can also perform a legal ceremony now.”

Choreographer, dancer, model and producer Fleur (38) and 53-year-old singer, director, producer and artistic director Peter are no strangers to a big production having been part of everything from massive West End productions to musical extravaganzas and movies.

Both have been riding the crest of a creative wave in recent years – so much so that they have not even had time for a honeymoon since their wedding last June.

East Belfast born father-of-three Peter, who has long been hailed the Master of the Musicals after stunning performances in Les Miserables, On Eagle’s Wing and The Call of the Celts, has been enjoying huge success as not only a singer but a writer and producer in recent years.

He says it’s a long way from the nervous teenager who stood up in front of a church congregation and belted out his first ever performance.

“I grew up between the Cregagh Road and the Ravenhill Road,” he says. “The Troubles were going on but you didn’t know any different back then. I had a very happy childhood. I was the youngest of three children. We had two parents who are still around, thank God. And I had a good, happy childhood.”

Peter’s childhood was filled with activity, mainly sport and music.

“I went to Annadale Grammar School at the top of the Ravenhill Road,” he recalls. “I suppose you would call it a working class grammar school. I did lots of music and hockey and things. I always enjoyed the sports and music side of things, the maths side of things not so much.

“My Saturdays were always really busy. I started off with the youth orchestra and the concert band and then I went to play hockey and badminton. Then there was usually a concert on a Saturday evening.

“We were brought up with a lot of music in the family so I was involved in music from a very young age.

“My brother conducts a brass band and my dad, who is 88, still plays in that. Mum and my sister sang in the church choir at the Salvation Army. Music was always, always in our family.”

Peter remembers fondly the moment he realised he could sing for an audience.

“I didn’t really start singing until I was around 17 years old,” he says. “I was always playing brass instruments until then.

“My singing started after one Sunday night, when we had been at church, and we went to a friend’s house.

“We were all sitting around thinking it would be great to put a band together. One of them said he would play guitar, another the drums, another the bass… and then they all looked at me and asked who is going to sing. I thought, well, maybe I could, and I went home, put on a few records and sang along with them. And the rest is history,” Peter says.

“I remember the first time I stepped on stage, it was in church and I was to sing the words of There Is A Green Hill Far Away set to the music of the Doors’ The House of the Rising Sun. I was quite nervous back in those days.”

Peter says the buzz of a performance he got at the church has never left him – and he reveals that he goes through familiar rituals before going on stage.

“I love the excitement you get before a performance, the buzz,” he says. “Even now. But thankfully I don’t get as nervous now as I did back then. I still love doing it.

“I have quite a few superstitions and rituals I do before I perform. If I’m doing a long running show the rituals become more and more pronounced as the show goes on. It’s a bit random. For example, before I walk onstage I always crack my fingers. It’s weird.”

Peter says that the best advice anyone ever gave him was to be fearless and never stop learning.

“I pushed myself on more than anything,” he says. “I say to my children to pick a job that they love. I am so driven when it comes to this job or anything to do with music or performing because I love doing it. It was really myself who took the bull by the horns and made things happen.

“The best advice anyone has ever given me over the years was when I first started in musical theatre.

“Someone said to me that you have something to learn from every situation and nothing to fear from it. And I think that is very true both in life and certainly in the career that I have. You always have fresh things to learn and new things to try. I’m lucky with one aspect of my career that I get to work with young people a lot. And that keeps you energised and positive about what you are doing,” Peter adds.

Peter says one of the most emotional events he has performed at was the funeral of footballing legend George Best in 2005. Growing up beside the Best family and being close to them, he says he had to emotionally detach himself so he could keep it together and honour George in a fitting way.

“I knew George’s brother, Ian, back then,” he says. “He and I would have hung around together. I remember I had to detach myself somewhat from the emotion in the room because I had something to do which came with a lot of responsibility. I just had to not think too much about it otherwise you could easily be caught up in the whole atmosphere. I was very nervous that day but more because of the responsibility I had, not just to the family but also to Northern Ireland, to make sure that George Best was represented in a fitting way.”

Peter says that no matter where he travels in the world, he still stays fiercely passionate about Northern Ireland and its future. “I am passionate about over here getting its act together,” he says. “I am passionate about what future we leave for those left behind and our young people and the responsibility we have in that.

“One of my hats is as the artistic director of the largest performing arts school in Northern Ireland. And I think that it’s part of my responsibility to pass on what I’ve picked up over the years to these young people. Not just those that want to be performers but also about how performing can help you with your self confidence and self belief. And I think that’s why somewhere like the Belfast School of Performing Arts has an important role.”

And something else the singer is passionate about is true love. He married the “love of my life”, Fleur Mellor, in Italy in June last year. He says making their almost decade-long romance official hasn’t changed their lives too dramatically.

“We were together for nine years before we got married last June,” he says. “It’s nice, it’s really good. But it’s not a really big change for us. I suppose when we were together nine years, it wasn’t inevitable it was going to happen, but I think we both were hoping that this is where our lives would lead and that we could make it work. And it has and we are both very happy. But it isn’t really a big change. It seemed the natural next step to our relationship.

“We met on the set of On Eagle’s Wing. Then, a few months later, when Fleur was over working in Belfast on the panto, our paths crossed again. From there our relationship developed. I don’t know if it was love at first sight. I think it was more of a slow burner, it took a bit of time.”

Peter says he hasn’t, so far, written a song for Fleur, but has penned many a love poem. He says they both took a day off on their wedding day and let others have the microphone.

“I didn’t sing at the wedding,” he says. “I wanted to party. We had the most simple of ceremonies. It was out in Italy and was a really small wedding, there were only about 40 people there, just friends and close family. I couldn’t have dreamed for a better wedding day. We both had a brilliant time.

“There were lots of tears and lots of laughter and we were surrounded by love and friends and family. It was a special couple of days.

“We wrote our own vows and a friend of ours sang All You Need is Love and another played the violin. My boys were my best men and it was just fantastic.”

Fleur says the wedding was so special that it inspired her to become a humanist UK celebrant, and she is now qualified to marry couples in her specially crafted humanist ceremonies.

“Because we do so much planning, our wedding was one of the easier things to plan,” she says. “We were so lucky that the place we booked was incredible.

“We just said to them to make it look nice and we wanted the food to taste good. Everything they did they did so well. And because we have to do so much decision making in other things, we were really quite happy to have the odd surprise here and there. There was no micromanaging. It was really laid back. We just told everyone to turn up and it was very relaxed.

“We left a lot of breathing room. The setting was so gorgeous we didn’t really care, we were just so happy to be there.

Fleur says humanist ceremonies can take any form that the couple prefers. People can get married in their old school or on a hillside. Fleur can also conduct humanist funerals and naming ceremonies.

“If you want to mark a major occasion in your life but you don’t align yourself with a particular religion, it offers you an absolutely incredible route to do that in a way that satisfies you but also has respect for everyone else in the room,” she says.

“So it doesn’t exclude anyone and is very lovely. It is very personal. So my role as a wedding celebrant is to work with a couple and curate a ceremony for them that reflects who they are as a couple and who their friends and family are. You have so many options to draw on and there is no formal structure, so you can create your own structure that works for everyone involved. It’s very exciting and emotional.”

Fleur says she is happy to see the love for humanist ceremonies growing in Northern Ireland.

“I absolutely love people,” she says. “I love people’s stories. We work in an industry where it’s all about the narrative. This to me seemed like a really natural progression after the wedding, which was the first wedding I had experience of doing things that way. It was just so very different and I thought that it was something I’d love to do and to offer people the opportunity to have this.

“It’s growing over here in Northern Ireland. Humanist wedding celebrations have been going on for years. They have been legal in Scotland and are newly legal here. They are not a new thing, but it’s not something that everyone is aware of.

“I think it’s just really joyous and really good fun. You can get married anywhere, you can include anything. If you are an animal person you can include your animals. It’s the story of a couple. Who are these two people? You can have your wedding halfway up a mountain, in your mum and dad’s back garden, at your old school or at the rugby club. Anything goes.

“Whatever you want to do, in your wildest dreams, let’s do it.

“The way of weddings is changing and people are realising that they can do things differently and this is just a way of facilitating that. It’s lovely.”

Fleur says that seven months after her own wedding, the couple are settling in well in their home in Hillsborough and to their life as a blended family. Peter has three grown up children, in their 20s, from his previous marriage.

“Married life is not a big adjustment,” she says. “You don’t know what to expect. You wonder how is it going to be different. Everything is just that little bit nicer. Nothing has changed dramatically. We had been living together, we haven’t suddenly changed how we do things. We did have in our vows that whoever is up first has to make the coffee in the morning and we have stuck to that.

“I have never really called myself a stepmother and neither have Peter’s children,” she says. “They have a brilliant relationship with their mum and they are lucky that they have two parents who love them and look out for them. I have always been their dad’s partner and now his wife. Peter’s children’s are all adults so it’s a slightly different connotation. We get on fantastically well. They are absolutely brilliant. We had them all around here on Boxing Day with all my family as well. Everyone gets on so well. Peter’s kids pop in and see my parents if they are over in England. We are very lucky. It’s lovely.”

Peter says the couple have a very busy year ahead, but hopes that at some stage they will get away for a belated honeymoon.

“The diary is pretty much full for the rest of the year now for the both of us,” he says. “Luckily some of the projects mean we will work together, and luckily some of them won’t.

“We will get the chance to miss each other along the way, which is good. And at some point we have to fit in a honeymoon.

“Two days after our wedding Fleur had to fly off to Spain where she was staging a show in Valencia. So we really only had a few days’ break before I had to come home to do a concert. So we are going to put aside a week and a half for that.”

And one destination that could very well be on the cards is Mauritius, where Fleur’s mother Marie-Claire hails from.

“I haven’t been there for about 11 years,” says Fleur. “It’s quite tricky, because you really have to go there for a good month. Peter hasn’t been there so we really need to go at some point. It’s a teeny tiny island and it is absolutely gorgeous. It’s one we need to plan into the diary properly, for sure.”

Belfast Telegraph