His daughter is Josephine Fairley, journalist, magazine editor and founder with her husband of Green & Black's chocolate company.
He attended Sutton Valence School, Kent and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and he was then the science correspondent for the London Evening Standard and made numerous radio broadcasts in the 1960s.
In April 1961, while employed at the Evening Standard, Fairley, based on warnings sent to ships in the Pacific and a hunch, predicted in his column that the U.S.S.R. was about to launch its first manned space flight.
The column appeared on the front page of the paper, and two days later, Russia launched Yuri Gagarin into space.
Peter Fairley calls pain "the most fascinating and possibly the most important subject I have ever tackled".