‘I Could Be Bitter About Only Getting £200 For Sgt Pepper’

The amiable Santa Claus lookalike Sir Peter Blake, 78, was one of the pioneers of the British pop-art scene in the late Fifties and Sixties.

Best known for his cover for the 1967 Beatles album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, for which he received only £200, he also designed the cover for the 1984 Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas? and the 2006 Oasis greatest-hits album Stop the Clocks.

His most recent pop collaboration is an art book with Beach Boy Brian Wilson. That Lucky Old Sun by Genesis Publications is out now for £900.

Knighted in 2002, he lives in London with his second wife, Chrissy.