WEBVTT - Conversations with Cornesy - Peter Greste 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:05.479 Hi, everyone, Welcome to conversations. In twenty thirteen, a war correspondent, 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.200 although he doesn't like the term, was detained in Cairo 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.960 by the Egyptian authorities, subsequently put to trial in the 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.239 twenty fourteen, was convicted and sentenced to seven years in 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.560 prison in an Egyptian jail. It's a well known case. 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:27.440 Eventually Peter Grestor was released after lots of negotiation, diplomatic 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:33.320 intervention and the like, and it became a really fascinating story. Subsequently, 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.880 Peter wrote a book about it, The First Casualty, And 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.040 now there's been a movie written about the story, and 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.760 the book has been re released with additional information and 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.800 chapters in it, called The Correspondent. Peter Grestor joins us, Peter, 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:48.600 thank you for your time. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.920 How are you fantastic to be with you? Grant what a. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.040 Life you've had or are having? Can I say? But 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.120 in terms of I don't know where to start. There's 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.960 a movie about your time incarceration in the Egyptian prison. 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.240 We'll get to that, of course. And that's a few 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.600 to have a movie written about you or made about you. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.920 Well, it's weird at one level. I mean, I suppose 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.200 we all play that game, you know who'd play you 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:18.400 in a movie? And seeing that actually happen there's been 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.920 a little bit bizarre. But I've also recognized that it's 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.600 not a movie about me. It's a movie about a 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.319 particular thing that happened to me. It's a movie about 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.319 or it's an artistic interpretation of a story that I wrote, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.840 and so it feels like it's a couple of steps 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.120 removed from from from me. I remember talking to the director, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.399 kriv Standers, who said that it's then he's not trying 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.040 to do not trying to make a photograph. This is 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.640 a painting. It's a kind of artistic rendering of that 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.760 experience that I had, And in a way, I guess 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.080 that makes it a lot easier to watch and see 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:58.800 it for what it is, rather than try and get 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.920 caught up with the idea that it's me on screen. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:03.640 Did you have any saying who was to play you? 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:06.960 A little bit like I don't think i'd have ever 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:13.880 really would go for Brad pitt Well. I was thinking, yeah, 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:20.320 I was thinking thinking Chris Hamsworth, myself, Richard Rock. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.720 I don't know how to say, sir named Roxborough. He's 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:25.800 a fine looking. 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.160 Man, a fine looking man and a fantastic actor. Although 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.200 I have to admit when I first heard that he 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.080 was he was being considered for the part, I just 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.880 couldn't get his most famous role out of my head, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.679 Clever Green, the lawyer in Rake. Clever Green is such 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.080 a kind of rogue character, such a strong character that 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:52.280 it was that and so strongly associated with Rocks that 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.480 that I really couldn't imagine how Clever Green would survive 0:02:55.560 --> 0:03:00.359 prison in Egypt. But Rox did an absolutely brilliant job. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.120 In fact, quite a number of the critics have described 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:04.799 his performance as career defining. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:06.680 We're going to get to Egypt, We're going to get 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.400 to an incarceration, your subsequent release, and the work you're 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.480 doing now. Of course, but the Bag story is interesting 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.120 of Latvian descent, so was it mum and dad who 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:17.480 immigrated it with. 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.320 My father some half lat Fin. My dad was a 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.359 first a Second World War immigrant, a refugee. He came 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:30.760 out after the Russians invaded Latvia. They fled latvieir and 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.399 went into refugee camps around Germany for a few years 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:39.280 until after the war. My step grandfather, my real grandfather, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.280 my paternal grandfather was captured. He was drafted into the 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.960 German army and captured by the Allies and ended up 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.560 dying in an Allied pow camp. And so my grandmother 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:56.240 then formed another relationship with my step grandfather, who came 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:00.640 to Australia as a part of the migrant refuge refugee 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:06.440 or migrant worker scheme and sponsored my grandmother's family to 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.440 come out. And so that's how he wound up in Australia. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.480 What a story. Did your dad ever talk to you 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.640 about his war time experiences? 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.599 A lot? In fact, you know, I think Dad's refugee 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:23.520 heritage fed a lot into us, into our DNA, in 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.960 ways that I don't think I ever really appreciated until 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.800 I spent I started working as a correspondent. He spoke 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.600 a lot about his time in refugee camps. It's sort 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.960 of informed the way that he sees the world, the 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.400 way that he engages with the world, even down to 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.200 very practical things like food. You know, refugees don't ever 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.840 seem to waste any food. They never check anything out. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.160 You can find the moldiest piece of cheese at the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:50.880 back of the fridge and Dad will scrape off the 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:52.520 mold and stick it on a slice of toast. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:54.200 Is he still with us? 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.800 Oh, definitely, yep, very much. In fact, I was with 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:02.800 my parents for Mother's Day. They're both kicking. My dad 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.200 is eighty eight, is about to turn eighty nine. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.400 Wow. Yeah, did your document? Did you document those experiences? 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.280 Well, we've had a lot of conversations with them. I went, 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:16.040 In fact, I went with mum and dad quite a 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.000 few years ago to Latfeer to see my mum and 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:25.400 dad's birthplace, and we followed my dad's path into Germany 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.800 and we went and visited all of the refugee camp 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.680 sites where he stayed, and he talked through it a lot. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.320 And Dad has himself written the story of the flight 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.240 from Latvieer in a book that keeps getting added. I 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.599 think he's up to a dender number nine at the moment. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.440 Was he hurt or heard? That's of course it was hurt. 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.120 But was he scarred by what happened to his dad? 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.880 I'm not sure. I'm not sure if scarred is the 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.440 right word for it. I think I think heavily influenced 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.120 formed by it. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:02.120 He died in an Allied prison camp. We're used to 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.880 the other experience where we were in Japanese were German ones. 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.040 Yeah. It is interesting, isn't it. But I think I 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.440 guess that's you know, we we I think we think 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.479 of the Allies has been always been the good guys 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.400 in this stuff. I think that's just a function of war. 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.400 And I think my father recognized that. I don't think 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.560 he you know, he saw it. I don't think he 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.080 holds the Allies responsible for it. I think it was 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:26.920 just one of those things, one of the tragedies that 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.760 happened in war, happened in so many places on all sides. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.800 You know. I think he's more formed by the whole 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:41.440 war experience, the refugee experience, than specifically his father's death. 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:43.840 What did he do when he came to a stranger. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.040 So he went and studied architecture, became an architect, and 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.039 many years yeah, working as an architect. One of the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.400 things that my grandmother was really forceful about when it 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:01.760 came to her kids was education, education, education, and. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.960 Rubbed off on you too. I mean you were good 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:04.400 at school. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.440 Yeah, I was pretty good at school. I was I 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:08.960 was a bit of a bit of a nerd, I 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:14.600 guess at school. I was never brilliant, but I certainly 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.000 didn't seem to struggle too much. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.720 But you went to Uni. I'm just reading the bioh 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.400 you did a business degree. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.400 It was it was a Bachelor of Business Communications. So 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.320 it was actually journalism. It was a public relations, advertising 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.280 and journalism. And I took to the journalism strand. 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.440 And where did that lead? I mean, you came out 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.360 of university with that degree. Where do you go? 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.440 Yeah? Well I went, So I went from there to 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:47.200 to rural Sheperdon. I was a journalist with the local 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.200 TV station, Victoria Sheppard, Victorian north Is Victoria. 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.440 Did you grow up in Queensland? 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.160 There was a job there. You know. I was always 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.320 keen for for my first job. And I guess that's 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.520 what the degree got me. It's got me that first 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:06.040 job and in some respects, in some respects a lot 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.640 of respects up until my students that that Shepherd and 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.560 was where I learned to be a foreign correspondent. 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.720 But Shepherd is a country Victorian town. The steeped in 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.960 the sport. And did you have to absorb as rules footy? 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:26.679 Yeah? I was your body dairy farming, fruit, fruit, fruit farming, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.800 all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that was look, it was. 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.800 It was a It was a great experience because it 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.160 taught me to work very quickly. It taught me to 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.240 work independently. It taught me the importance of accuracy. You know, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.720 I guess one of the things in Capital City newsrooms 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.880 is that you're often a little bit isolated from your audiences, 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.720 whereas in a place like Shepherd And if you every 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.640 you know, if you whenever you walk down the street 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.280 the following day after a story, someone would tap you 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:55.640 on your shoulder and pull you up for some factoid 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.439 that you'd gotten wrong, some some name that you'd mispronounced 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.960 and correct you very very quickly. So I was very 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.080 close to the people that you're actually reporting for. 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.040 Let's stay go from country Victoria to reporting in the 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.520 world's hotspots. I mean, where did you what was the 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:13.360 next quantum leap? 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.520 From Victoria to Darwin? I worked for the ten networkers 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.840 the ten Networks Northern Australia reporter for a year, not 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.160 hell of a long time, and then from Darwin to 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.680 Adelaide for about three years. 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.000 How did you work for an Adelaide for. 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.800 The ten network? It was just in the local and 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.280 the state. The Capital City news room but I guess 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.240 that was you asked about the quantum leap, you asked 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.880 about the formative shift, and I guess it happened there 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.800 because I was in Adelaide for about three years, and 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.520 towards the end of three years, I remember starting to 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.800 feel as though I was repeating the stories. You know, 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.760 that I could take a script that i'd done twelve 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.400 months previously and pretty much changed the names and the 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.760 dates and refile the story that. But it just felt 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.680 as though that there were kind of stories at routine 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.600 that came up, whether it was fatal car accidents or 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:12.880 industrial disputes or government local council politics, and I was 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.440 starting to look for something new. And I remember reading 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.040 a book called One Crowded Hour, a biography of a 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.080 guy called Neil Davis, who was an extraordinary Australian cameraman 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.640 who covered Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, Laos and 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:34.280 Cambodia and so on, and Davis was became a bit 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.240 of an icon for me. He was incredibly brave, He 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.480 was wounded something like twenty three times. He saw more 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:46.040 active combat than almost than most serving soldiers. It's not 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.360 that I wanted to be on the front lines and 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:54.079 wounded in while I was doing my job. But it 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.880 struck me that Davis was at what a friend of 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.240 mine once called the hinges of history pivotal moments, that 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.839 he was passionate about the stories and the people that 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.680 he was covering, and he showed extraordinary professionalism and having 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.200 some wonderful adventures along the way, And I thought, well, 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.240 that's actually what I want to do. And about that time, 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.160 this was in around late ninety around early nineteen nineties, 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.800 nineteen ninety ninety one, when we had the famous recession 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.120 that we had to have, the TEN network went into 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.800 receivership to save money, they closed down the London bureau, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:30.920 and I had this sort of idea of being a 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.480 foreign correspondent starting to develop in my mind, and I 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.240 realized that you couldn't have really one of the main 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.959 Australian networks without a London correspondent. So I marched into 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.719 my boss's office and said, listen, if I quit, if 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.360 I resigned my job here and take myself to London, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.000 would you guys use me as a stringer? And they 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.200 said sure, why not. It wasn't going to cost them anything, 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.480 It wasn't any major crisis for them. They knew my work, 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:00.360 and so that's what I did. 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.480 Peter Grest is my guest, folks. His book is called 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:09.560 The Correspondent. The movie starring Richard Rochburt is also out 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.959 at the moment, called The Correspondent, based on Peter's life 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.800 back shortly, Welcome back, everybody. My guest is Peter Grest 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.760 talking about his book called The Correspondent, and that's the 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.720 story of his well, his life as a journalist, but 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.360 specifically I suppose where he was detained and trialed and 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.520 put the trial and incarcerated in Egypt. But I get 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.480 lost in the in the early days, and I didn't 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.560 realize Peter was in Adelaide for three years, then goes 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.880 off to London. But can I just persist on the Oudelaide? 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:42.200 Do you have any memories of Adelaide? 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:43.560 Of course I loved Adelaide. 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.000 Did you have a footy team you're barried for? 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.120 I had to be the Crows, didn't it did? 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.440 Then you've got a choice now unfortunate. Oh yeah, not 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.760 not unfortunately but fortunately. But so if you go to London, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:12:58.760 what was that like? 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.320 Yeah, it was, it was. It was a really formative experience, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.600 I guess you know, I started, I started doing some 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.560 work for the ten network, but in the end it 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.320 didn't really amount to a huge amount. I started doing 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:17.280 some other freelancing around some news organizations, Reuter's w what 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.319 was then WTN Worldwide Television News, and a little bit 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:26.480 for the BBC World's BBC World Tv. And then I'm 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.480 you're going to love this. I met a girl in 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.320 a pub in London who took me off to Bosnia 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:34.920 during the war in Yugoslavia. 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:37.040 Yeah, how did she do that? 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.280 Well, she was this gorgeous, flamehaired Irish girl who I 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.040 saw dancing on a table and yeah, yeah, it certainly did. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.600 And I was a bit namored, and I started chatting 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.120 her up and you know, got her phone number. But 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.800 she told me that she was One of the things 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:55.320 that she said was that she was about to go 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.960 on this on a pilgrimage to a place called Magagori, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.800 which was in in the place in the region of 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.640 Bosni called herzeg Bosna, which was a Croat control part 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:10.880 of Bosnia, and Magagori was this place where Catholic pilgrims 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.560 went from basically from the nineteen seventies through there were 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.080 these visions of the Virgin Mary that started appearing there 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.840 in front of a bunch of kids, and it became 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.160 it developed a reputation for miracles and miraculous visions and 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:30.200 healings and so on amongst the Catholic community. And Kathy 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.480 Heggerty that was this girl's name, you know, said she 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.960 was about to go on this pilgrimage and I thought 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.600 it was an extraordinary story, the idea of these pilgrims 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.160 going into the middle of a war zone. And she said, well, 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.840 why don't you come? And I laughed it off, but 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.080 I told the story to two friends of mine, one 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:50.960 who worked for The Australian and the other who worked 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.560 for ABC Radio, and within two days I got messages 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.200 from the foreign editors of both saying, look, for God's sake, 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.680 you're thinking at all of going to Yugoslavia. Let us know, 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.960 because are really in the market for freelance stories. I thought, well, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.560 it's a no brainer, isn't it. There's a story and 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.120 the clients and there's the girl. 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.160 No, I'm jumping ahead now, but what happened to Kathy 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:11.320 in the air. 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.680 Yeah, she went off. She actually became became a nun. 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.280 The Catholic nun and not kidding. Yeah, so that was 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:24.640 never going to really be a that relationship. But she 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.320 actually she also wrote to me in prison once and 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.680 I replied to her. Yeah, I replied to her and said, listen, 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.320 you realize that you're the reason I'm here. 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.880 Wasn't here? Was it as horrific as it was later reported? 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.640 I mean, there was all sorts of it. 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:44.040 It was pretty horrific. I mean I was. I was 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.160 really working around the fringes. I spent a bit of 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.560 time in Sarajevo and worked across other parts of Bosnia 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.400 at the time, you know, I was. I was. I 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:58.800 was green as grass then. I had no no experience 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.360 of of war zones. I didn't know how to operate. 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.480 I had no equipment, no training. It was really, even 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.440 though diving in the deep end, I was still just 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.400 doggy paddling around close to the edges. 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.360 Did you have to fund yourself when you Yeah? 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.600 I did, and I knew I was going to lose 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.440 money on it, but I also figured that the opportunity 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.160 was too good, was too good to pass up. It 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.840 was just something that seemed quite obvious to me. I 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.080 was never not going to go if I had that 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:31.480 that I had that invitation. 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.160 So slowly you develop as a authentic wal correspondent. I 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.600 looked at the places you've served in, like Bosnia, South Africa, Afghanistan, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.680 Somalia and Nairobi. The one place that really fascinated me 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.840 was mom Besser. I've been fascinated with mom bess Ever 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.800 that Warren Zevon's song about rolling the Headless Gunner. He 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.960 met him at a bar in mom Besser. Can you 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:58.680 tell me about mom Besser. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.040 I loved my partner at the time. I was an 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:09.959 ecologist who ran a nature reserve near Mombassa, and I 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.280 was working for the BBC then and the BBC was 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.160 happy to have me as a freelance And when you're 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.760 working for the BBC as a freelance correspondent, it doesn't 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.320 really matter where you live, as long as you're close 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:20.840 to an airport and you can get to wherever you 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.600 need to be. And it's absolutely it's an incredible town. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:30.760 It's one of those wonderful, exotic, ancient trading towns where 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:36.320 you have the intersection of Arab traders and Swahili communities, 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:41.919 coastal African communities and Indian communities all coming together in 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:46.520 this extraordinary melting pot. It's a beautiful town in this 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:50.800 sort of rough, rugged, messy, chaotic African kind of way. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:52.520 Is it safe. 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.800 It looked like anyway, I guess. I remember someone when 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.280 I first went to Africa, probably the best piece of 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.400 advice I ever had was from someone who said, listen. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.560 Africa is not for beginners. You need to you need 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:06.200 to keep your eyes open. But as long as you 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.240 keep your eyes open and you're willing to not just 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.840 keep your eyes open, but your ears open, you're willing 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.159 to listen and communicate and talk to people, then you 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:16.160 can operate safely. 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.240 But were you still a beginner then no. 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.359 By then I'd had quite a few years. I've been 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.680 to Afghanistan, of course previously, and then I had five 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:30.440 years in Latin America, working across Mexico and Chilean Argentina, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.280 and you know, in the interim. I was back in 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.480 Afghanistan after nine to eleven for the war the top 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:41.640 of the Taliban, and so I've been around a fair bit. 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.399 I was also in Iraq during the post nine to 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.040 eleven conflicts, so I knew I knew how to operate. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.280 Intrigues me with people like yourself have got such a 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.320 history of reporting from war zones. How do you settle down? 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:56.720 Now? 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.440 Do you settle down? Do you have a private life, 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.600 GiB what do How do you establish relationships? 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:07.639 Yeah, well I've got a stream of relationships behind me 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:09.399 and probably a few of my exes would say I 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:15.520 don't do that very well, look settling down. It's interesting. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:23.040 My one x remember said to me that the after Egypt, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.919 in fact, she felt that the greater trauma was not 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.080 so much having to go through Egypt, but having to 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.919 give up my old life as a correspondent, that that 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.640 was the harder thing to manage, and actually thinks she's 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:35.520 probably right. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:37.639 Well, how did you end up in Egypt? Tell us 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:38.840 how you ended up in Egypt? 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.520 So I've been working for Al Jazeera. I left the 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:47.199 BBC in two thousand and eleven after I made a 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:52.480 film for Panorama on Somalia and Al Jazeera offered me 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.480 a role as there East Africa correspondent and I was 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:02.119 based in Nairobi when in twenty thirteen, towards the end 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.399 of twenty thirteen, they needed someone to cover the bureau 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.239 in Cairo, just over the Christmas New Year period. They 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.400 wanted me just to basically go up and treade water, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.760 just to keep the stories ticking over. There'd been an 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:18.560 ongoing political crisis between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.720 had formed the first democratically elected government in the middle 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.679 of twenty twelve, and it had been forced out of 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.440 power in a coup in the middle of twenty thirteen, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.199 and so by the time that I was asked to 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.720 go up to Cairo at the end of twenty thirteen, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:38.120 there was a lot of political turmoil, ongoing street protests 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.760 between the Brotherhood supporters and supporters of the military installed regime. 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.159 And the job was really just, as I said, to 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.680 keep the stories ticking over while they were a little 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.639 bit short staffed over that Christmas New Year period. So 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.800 the government would announce the new interim government, would announce 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.320 some changes to the constitution. We'd pick up the phone 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.920 and call the opposition to get their response, and that, 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.120 of course happened to be the Brotherhood. Then you'd find 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.360 a political analyst to make sense of it all. It was. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.640 It was vanilla journalism, nothing particularly dramatic. 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.359 When you say al Jazeero, I mean you explained it 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.840 in your book, but we always associate Al Jazeero with 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.520 sympathizers to the Muslim Muslim Islamic endeavors. Put it if 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:23.200 I can put it that. 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.120 Way, yeah, I don't think that's I don't think that's 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.600 fair or accurate. Al Jazeera. So Al Jazeera was set 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:34.040 up by the Katari government after the BBC Arabic Service 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:39.000 collapsed and the Qataris saw the value of the soft power, 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.200 the soft influence that world cer that the Arabic Service 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.439 gave to the BBC, and they saw a big void 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:50.600 in Arabic language media in that kind of area, and 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:55.840 so the Kataris set up Al Jazeera and using a 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.080 lot of former BBC staffers to create that kind of 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:04.200 that kind of service. Now, I always felt that they 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:06.520 were doing it for window dressing. It was to present 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.720 Qatar as a kind of much more democratic, open minded 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.800 political force than it actually was culturally and politically. But 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.199 as long as they didn't mess with my journalism, as 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.680 long as they allowed us to operate freely and independently, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.400 then I was okay with that. And that's really how 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.360 it worked. There was never any kind of political agenda, 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:33.800 There was never any kind of pro Islamic Muslim Brotherhood agenda. 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:36.560 There was simply an agenda to try and cover the 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:41.000 region as best we could. And I guess in the 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.359 same way that if you work for the BBC, you 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:46.560 tend to get an Anglo centric view of the world. 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.359 If you're based out of Doha, then you tend to 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.360