On the third of January 1957, a boy named Peter was born in Manawatu, New Zealand to David and Joan Cleland. Who would have thought this boy 's birth would change so many people 's lives. He was the first of 7 children to David and Joan, the family eventually being named the Cleland Clan that today has 27 grand-children and 15 great-grandchildren.

Peter attended Winchester School, Intermediate Normal, and Palmerston North Boys High, a high school that all his brothers attended, as well as many of his nephews. It was at high school that Peter’s personal legacy started to build; according to him he was very good at boxing, and particularly good at boxing any other student that looked at any of his brothers the wrong way.

Following high school, Peter entered the working world as a lab technician at Glaxo on Botanical Road; his legacy of being a practical joker began there where he once blew up the laboratory in a failed experiment that he thought might be interesting.

It was around this time that Peter met a young innocent lovely student who had come from Foxton to study at Massey University and ended up coming along to PN Central Baptist Church. Adrienne didn 't know what she was getting in to by getting involved with Peter – but nonetheless things seemed to work out quite well and Peter and Adrienne were engaged while Peter had a stint working close to Whangarei. They were married in January 1979 and as Adrienne said this week, there wasn’t a single day in the last 42 years when she didn’t know she was fully loved by Peter. Above any other achievement or success, in today’s world that is perhaps the most underrated and yet significant difference that Peter has made in the world

Peter then went on to work at the Dairy Research Institute, while at the same time completing a Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology at Massey, including a project working in Nepal with Ken Keyte constructing an apple drying plant – a memory, and friendship, that Peter held fondly for the rest of his life.A bank transfer took Adrienne and Peter to Wellington in 1984 where they became an active part of Newlands Baptist Church. New friendships were made that continue today. Peter continued working for the Dairy Board where he was involved in the construction of dairy factories, both in NZ and China.Returning to Palmerston North in 1990, Peter became the General Manager for the NZ Horticulture and Food Research Institute and at the same time completed an MBA at Massey.

Life changed for Peter and Adrienne when Isaac was born in 1994, and many of us have received ongoing phone calls about Isaacs progress in life, ever since! Sadly we were all one phone call short of hearing of Isaac’s success in the defence of his PhD just last Friday, but we all know we would have received that phone call from a very proud Dad!

The Cleland family relocated to Auckland 15 years ago when Adrienne was appointed to a role at the University of Auckland and over this time Peter has pursued a myriad of different business and community interests. Peter has appeared in several TV ads as well as a guest appearance with an odd American accent in Shortland Street. Peter was most recently director and manager of Molesworth Fruit Auckland Limited. On top his myriad of professional and educational achievements, Peter also had a myriad of personal ‘hobbies’, from martial arts to golf, train sets, Apple technology, playing the guitar etc.

Peter was proud of his family. He has a kind heart and he welcomed everyone who was living under his roof. He was proud of the new formation of Cleland-Babbage-Feng family in 2018.

Peter was applying to become a Justice of Peace in 2021. Although, his sudden passing stopped his way to becoming a JP. We all know, he would have been a great JP, helping people out with his kindness and a sense of humor.