I'VE LOST JK -
Summary:
THE distraught father of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling last night told how he feared his famous daughter would never speak to him again.
Article:
In an exclusive interview, Peter Rowling spoke of his anguish after his daughter - who with her £280 million fortune is richer than The Queen - failed to help bail him out after his business went bust.
She is furious with him for selling a collection of rare Harry Potter first editions to help cover £100,000 debts after his mobile burger bar went under.
Peter "It's a heartbreaking situation," he said. "I fear I have lost my daughter. I can only hope Joanne will one day come to understand why I did it," he said.
Now Peter's greatest fear is that he may never get to know the nine-month-old grandson he is yet to see.
And he is worried that the bitter rift may also harm his relationship with his youngest daughter Dianne, a solicitor, who is very close to her famous sister.
Peter told how he phoned Joanne in June, told her of his financial crisis and explained he would have to auction off the rare, signed books.
Despite his desperate situation the author - who does a lot of charity work - did not offer to help him. Instead, he says, she flew into a rage.
"I told her I had a problem and needed to raise some cash. I told her, 'I'm sorry love, but if there was another way I would do it'.
"It was a short conversation. I was very nervous about talking to her because in her position I would be very angry. Her reaction was natural. She was livid."
Joanne told him: "Look, these books are personal...you can't sell them."
Peter added: "It was awful because when I did it I knew it was against what she wanted.
"Everything Joanne said about not selling the books was right. Her point was well made. The inscriptions on the books are lovely. I said to her, 'Sorry love, speak soon'."
Peter said, after speaking to Joanne, "I was left with no option but to sell the books."
And he revealed he was too proud to ask Joanne to dip into her vast fortune - as it is a father's job to support a daughter, not the other way round.
"It's my pride," said Peter, 58, a retired Rolls Royce engineer on an £800-a-month pension. "It's not for me to ask. I wouldn't ask anyone for help. At the end of the day it's not Joanne's problem."
Peter said he went through months of turmoil over his decision. But he said he had no choice - the business he helped set up with brother-in-law Dave Evans had plunged him into serious debt.
He said: "It gave me great doubts but I couldn't see any other way out. Jo was upset - I can understand her misgivings and feelings.
"I went through months of worry and doubt. But once I made the decision I couldn't go back on it. I still think that I can be true to myself.
"I'm sure I've done the right thing to help Dave even though it has so upset Joanne ." Last week four of the seven she had given him fetched just over £50,000 at Sotheby's, New York. The other three failed to reach the reserve price. One has the touching personal note inside: "Happy Father's Day 2000 and lots of love from your first born, J.K. Rowling."
Since the phone call, Joanne has spoken to Peter just once. She called him last month after seeing a Sotheby's prospectus - which revealed that he was selling the books - to urge him again not to go ahead with the sale. He told her: "Sorry love, I can't find any alternative."
Peter said: "She was upset. She was saying how disappointed she was that I had to do it. I said that even then I would pull out of it but I hadn't got anything else valuable I could sell."
Peter said he and wife Jan had ploughed £16,000 into the burger business he set up with his brother-in law.
But within weeks they found they has been duped into buying their pitches by a crooked businessman, lost them - and went bust.
Peter considered selling his £90,000 three-bedroom house in Chepstow or £180,000 apartment in Swanage, Dorset...but then he remembered the books.
He was told he would get the best price in America towards Christmas and put the books in the hands of a niece who lives in New York. She arranged the sale with Sotheby's.
"I'll admit I did feel dreadful when I parceled those books up and posted them to New York," said Peter. "I'm glad I will get three back because that is a bonus in a way.
"It has been said I hoped to make £130,000. But I didn't know what they would fetch."
Whatever, it would be small change to J.K. - officially the richest self-made woman in Britain. She is happily married to Dr Neil Murray, 34. As well their baby son David - born this spring - Joanne has a daughter Jessica, 10, from her first marriage.
She has a £1.5 million estate in Perthshire, a £4.5 million townhouse in Kensington, London, and a £2million Edinburgh villa.
Peter said Joanne had been generous in the past. "She has paid for two holidays to Tenerife three or four years ago."
But even before the current row, Peter and his second-wife Jan rarely saw Joanne. Asked when they last met face-to-face, Peter says he can't remember, but thinks it was earlier this year. He said: "There are 400 miles between us. We used to speak a lot on the phone and Jan and I used to go up to Scotland. It's less now. Jo is an extremely busy woman and she is out of the country a lot. And of course now there's a bit of friction."
Peter still has fond memories of her secret wedding two years ago at their Scottish mansion.
"It was a fantastic event. I was full of pride and so happy for Jo. She looked gorgeous, lovely. It was a marvellous day," said Peter, who was among just 14 guests.
"Jan and I had our instructions to drive to Bristol airport and we had to go to a special area where the private jets are."
Joanne picked up the £10,000 bill for the couple to be flown by Cessna executive jet to Edinburgh. There they were met by private limo and whisked to the mansion.
"Jan and I got changed and then it was time for the ceremony, which was kept quite simple."
Peter glows with pride when he looks at the picture of Jo in a gold dress and a tiara and him with an affectionate arm around her.
"I wasn't called upon to formally give her away or make a speech or anything like that. It was just a lovely day. We stayed over that night and flew back from Edinburgh the next morning."
Peter is delighted Joanne has found happiness after the trauma and heartache of her first, violent marriage to journalist Jorge Arantes, who beat her.
He and Jan had not been able to go to that wedding in Portugal because they didn't have valid passports. But he said: "We wouldn't have missed the Scotland wedding for the world."
Peter is still hurt by claims a rift developed between him and Joanne because he met current wife Jan, his former secretary at Rolls Royce in Bristol, after her mother - his first wife Anne who died in 1990 - was struck down by multiple sclerosis.
He said: "The inference is a bloody insult. I'd challenge anyone to wire me up to a lie detector and ask me the truth. My relationship with Jan didn't start until a year after Anne died."
Peter now wants to heal the rift - and is prepared to make the first move.
"It will be me that makes the phone call because in her eyes, I'm the one who has done something. "I hope Joanne reads these words so she understand why I have done what I've done."
A spokesman for J.K. Rowling last night denied she had turned her back on him. "She had no idea her father's business had gone bust," said the spokesman.
Sundaymirror.co.uk 
