Family launches appeal for missing rock star

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 22

Family launches appeal for missing rock star

NZPA-AAP London The distraught family of a missing English rock star who disappeared in Australia almost four years ago has launched a last-bid appeal to find him. John Andrew Mayhew, who married a New Zealander, Petrea Anderson, was formerly a drummer and vocalist in the group Genesis.

He has not communicated with his family in Ipswich, England, since early 1982 and they now hold grave fears for his safety.

His mother, Mrs Alice Mayhew, last spoke to her son in February, 1982, after his father died. She describes him as a “much-travelled lad,” tall, dark and good-looking with “no end of girls.” His marriage to Petrea

took him to the antipodes in June, 1976. The family believes that Mayhew worked for his wife’s parents, Jurgen and Ann Anderson, in their fishing business in Northland. Mayhew’s marriage broke up and he travelled to Australia in search of work in 1981, said Mrs Mayhew. Correspondence from him dwindled and when his father died, Mrs Mayhew asked the Red Cross to help trace him.

He was found at Sydney’s Neutral Bay, where he was working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation making scenery. Mrs Mayhew said her son was withdrawn during their last 45-minute telephone conversation.

“I had to pump him a lot, you couldn’t get a lot out of

him. He was a boy who wouldn’t really speak his mind — he was very quiet, very placid and temperamental,” she said.

She expressed fears for his safety, saying that her son became easily depressed but only experimented with soft drugs.

“I’m afraid he has given up, thrown the towel in and let it slip away,” she said. Ironically, John Mayhew, who would now be aged 38, is still accumulating royalties from his days with Genesis, the band made popular by the singer and composer, Phil Collins. Mayhew’s record company could not be reached, but his mother said the amount ran into “thousands of pounds.”