Beginnings

Greetings, I’m a New Zealand-born journalist, broadcaster, author and documentary film-maker. I’ve worked continuously abroad as a foreign correspondent between 1976 and 2012…and hopefully haven’t been too knocked about by all the time differences.

I was initially based in Tokyo for Radio New Zealand, also covering South Korea. My print work included articles for Asia Week and the Hong Kong Standard. Moving to Rome in 1983 meant providing regional coverage for, among other outlets, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This arrangement continued as Nordic correspondent based in Copenhagen. I also enjoyed some years association with Radio Netherlands International (who wouldn’t want to take every chance they could to hit Amsterdam?) and occasionally on American National Public Radio’s current affairs programme All Things Considered. In 1992 I moved to London and established a small investigative unit in the West End, also making radio documentaries and series for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service.

Early life

My formative years were in New Zealand. An interest in the wider world was sparked by my theatre manager father, who, in the early 1950s, had spent some weeks in the UK looking at cinemas for the Kerridge-Odeon circuit. My world view benefitted from my parents’ friendship with a remarkably erudite German Jewish couple who had fled from their country in the late ‘30s.

On transferring to Christchurch, my father arranged with the editor of Junior Digest for me to write a monthly column on films. I also met a number of UK and American film people who visited the city and contacted my father.

As a teenager I belonged to World Tape Pals, exchanging taped messages and music with others of a similar age, in many countries. How times have changed!