Pop art pioneer Peter Blake: ‘I wasn’t really a swinger. I never did any drugs’

The artist, 91, on not being taken seriously, his first solo sculpture show, and why his Beatles’ Sgt Pepper cover has been a mixed blessingPeter Blake was born in Dartford, Kent in 1932 and went to art school at Gravesend Technical College. Leaving at the age of 15, he did national service and then trained at the Royal College of Art. His early works were critical to the definition of British pop art. In 1967, famously, he designed the cover for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonel