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In one infamous column which he would never have got away with today, he described the delight of sitting on Primrose Hill in the afternoon sunlight watching young schoolgirls walk past.

At times he was in open conflict with the BBC hierarchy and with his fellow, more conventional Radio One disc jockeys, whose chart-orientated musical tastes he openly derided on air. He also hated the slick approach of colleagues such as Tony Blackburn, and his own style could not have been more different. It became commonplace for him to play records at the wrong speed, lose his running order or forget the name of the track he had just played. The BBC was sensible enough to realise that it was all part of his charm, and that it was his refusal to toe the line that was largely responsible for his popularity.

In 1969 he set up his own record label, Dandelion, and signed a roster of wilfully non-commercial acts, including Principal Edward’s Magic Theatre (whom he put up in his house for a time), Bridget St John, Stackwaddy, Kevin Coye and Medicine Head, who gave the label its only Top 30 hit with Pictures in the Sky.

At one point he even had the bizarre idea of forming a group called 101 Sharons, with the intention of finding that number of female singers with the same name. Legend has it that he abandoned the project when he got to 40. Such a cavalier approach to commercial success could not last, and the label closed in late 1972. The 26 albums Peel released in the three years of the label’s existence all later became collectors’ items.

During the 1970s, Peel’s influence waned a little as the music he had been responsible for popularising became increasingly mainstream and predictable. Then, in 1976, punk exploded like a rash of acne across the music scene. Peel became its most vocal champion on the airwaves.

As he switched his playlist to a diet of the Ramones, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Undertones, he alienated much of his core audience who switched their allegiance to DJs such as Bob Harris, who was still playing the rock supergroups whom the punks dismissed as “dinosaurs” and “boring old farts”. But Peel discovered an entire new audience who loved the fact that he could play a record like Teenage Kicks by the Undertones and then declare he liked it so much he was going to play it all over again — the first time that had ever been done on BBC radio.

He went on aligning himself with challenging new music for the rest of his career, and by the 1990s he was the only member of the “school of ’67” still broadcasting on Radio One, as the likes of Harris and Johnnie Walker transferred to Radio Two.

In later years, his programmes were often presented in homely fashion from Peel Acres, the name he gave to the family base in Suffolk, which he shared with his wife Sheila, whom he affectionately referred to in his programmes for many years as “the Pig”, on account of her laugh.

In 1998 he added another string to his bow as the presenter of Radio Four’s Home Truths, a listener-friendly magazine programme full of warm and whimsical stories which his one-time producer John Walters once described as “about people who have fridges called Renfrewshire”. He was also in demand as a voice-over artist for television advertisements, although he reportedly refused to work on adverts for products that he did not use himself.

His many honours and awards included Melody Maker’s DJ of the Year on 11 occasions, a Broadcaster of the Year citation in 1993 and a Sony Gold award for a lifetime’s contribution to radio in 2002. In 1994 he was even given a “Godlike Genius Award” from the NME . He also received several honorary degrees and was appointed OBE in 1998.

At the time of his death of a heart attack in Cuzco, Peru, he was working on his autobiography, which is scheduled for publication in 2005.

He is survived by his wife, whom he married in 1974, and by two sons and two daughters.

John Peel, OBE, broadcaster, was born on August 30, 1939. He died of a heart attack on October 25, 2004, aged 65.