The sea captain retired some eight years ago to his Plumley cottage, but remains understandably enamoured with the seafarer's life.

"All sailors want to come ashore, but when they do they always want to get back to sea," he says.

"Being out there in the middle of the ocean, where all you can see is the stars, the sun, the moon and the waves is just beautiful.

"People never get to see that kind of solitude."

Born in July 1931 in Melton Mowbray, Peter decided at an early age that a life on the sea was for him.

Trips to Falmouth with his parents and sister Anne fired his enthusiasm, and the young Peter would climb aboard ships and 'charge around' the deck.

Peter had been expected to join the successful family firm of road contractors after leaving boarding school in Bedford, but after explaining to his father Bert his passion for the sea, he was allowed to pursue his dream.

"Being a sailor was well-thought of at that time, and a good profession to go into," he says.

At 15 he left school to join HMS Worcester, where he learned how to become a seafarer.

A year later he was aboard his first journey, on a four-month cargo trip.

"The first time I was at sea I knew I had to be sick, so I was, but after that I never was again."

But Peter had to encounter many terrifying conditions at sea - including a hurricane while he was aboard a liner from 1928.

"Nobody was allowed out on deck," he said. "We were in a cocoon and just had to take whatever the storm had to give us.

"But even in the middle of a hurricane, I was never ever frightened. I had faith in the British-made boat."

As Peter now amusingly notes, the same boat ran aground in San Francisco the year later, and was destroyed.

Freak weather was something Peter had to get used to during his 27 years on the sea, and on journeys to the Pacific as a chief officer aboard experimental canal craft, crew would spend sleepless nights riding the storms.

"It would be a dreadful experience, rolling 50 degrees either way.

"If you were on duty on deck, you had to wedge yourself between the telegraph and compass.

"If you were below deck, you had to wedge your head against the wardrobe and your feet against the bunk."

Despite the hard work, Peter describes them as the happiest ships to be aboard because of the small team of about 30 - with everyone getting on together.

During one of his weeks of leave in 1951, Peter joined his parents at a family holiday in Filey and met future wife Lilian at a dance at the hotel.

"We agreed to write to each other and it just went from there," he said.

The couple married in 1955 in Heptonstall, Lilian's home town, and Peter had just two weeks' leave to get used to married life.

"I was still on cargo ships at that time, and Lilian accepted that I was going to be away for a lot of the time.

"She just had to accept it. In those days wives didn't go to sea. There were no females on board at all.

"And it was considered bad luck because if you get a woman on a trip there is always trouble."

Their first child, Robert, was born in 1958, and being at sea meant Peter missed seeing him grow up in the first year.

In 1960, Peter took a job ashore with Manchester Liners, and so when son Anthony was born the same year, it was a time for Peter to catch up with family life - and found there were treats in store.

"Anthony bawled every day and night for six months so I wished I had been away at sea," he joked.

But there was a cruel blow in store for the Frier family.

In 1984, Manchester Liners was sold to Chinese buyers and all the British workers were laid off in what became known as The Great Chinese Takeaway.

"I was completely and utterly lost," said Peter.

"It had been a marvellous family-run business - like one huge family."

The boss, Robbie Stoker, knew all of his employees by their christian names and used to wander down to the docks to see how they were doing.

"All our needs were taken care of so when they were suddenly taken away I was completely lost and a bit of a wreck," he said.

But the 'Old Boys' Network' came to Peter's rescue, with the offer of a captaincy on a Greek cargo liner in the south.

The Frier family moved from their Sale home to Felixstowe, while Peter embarked on a tough job, supervising the cargo during its journeys to destinations around the world.

"It was a completely different way of life," he said. "I would have to live in hotels abroad for weeks.

"I would be flying around the world club class and staying in the top hotels.

"It all sounds very glamorous, but I would rather have been at home."

His Greek boss eventually went bust in 1989 - for three million dollars - leaving Peter, as he says, 'stuck on the beach.'

"There I was on the beach at Felixstowe, at the age of 58, without a job," he said.

But he found a job - as a messenger boy for £2.50 an hour.

"Everyone thought I had gone mad," he said. "But running around the shipping offices with messages I managed to make a lot of contacts and within 12 months I started out as a marine surveyor."

His small business was so successful that he was asked to join surveying firm Scruttons where he stayed until he retired in 1992.

The couple decided to return to the North West, chosing Plumley because of a beautiful cottage they found nestled in Hawthorne Road.

"When we saw it we thought 'This is it'. Lilian said we had to have it regardless of price."

The labyrinth of corridors and doors in their home lead to an eventual halt outside the 'Captain's Cabin', Peter's den of enterprise in his retirement, and the only noticeable memento of a life spent at sea.

Outside, the Friers' pretty garden sprawls around the cottage, with stepping stones and ornate features paving the way.

It is where Peter loves to spend his spare time, and where he won Gardener of the Year in Plumley four years ago.

"I am quite content in my garden," he said. "They say it is what retired sailors do - garden or become farmers. It must be the outside life."

Peter's other great passion is for trains - and by a happy coincidence, his home is just minutes from Plumley station .

"Even at school I was not that interested in the work. I was more interested in the trains that used to go past the school.

"It stems back to the steam trains I suppose. They were such beautiful machines, an amazing piece of engineering and power.

"I don't know why I didn't become a railwayman, really."

But as a member of Mid-Cheshire Rail Users' Association, Peter gets the chance to organise an entire excursion by train, as the group annually hires out a train for a special trip in May.

"When you see the train coming into the station, and you have organised the seating and coaches, it is all very satisfying," he says.