- Stephen Peet
Stephen Peet (
16 February 1920 -22 December 2005 ) was a British filmmaker, best known as a pioneer of illustratedoral history and hisBBC television series "Yesterday's Witness " (1969-1981).Born in
Penge , southLondon , into aQuaker family, in which his journalist father, Hubert Peet, had been imprisoned as aconscientious objector inWorld War I , Peet was educated at the QuakerSidcot School ,Somerset , where he met his future wife, Olive, as a fellow pupil. He was himself a conscientious objector inWorld War II , serving with theFriends Ambulance Unit in London, northAfrica andGreece , where he was takenprisoner of war , to be held inGermany .He had begun his career in the late 1930s as a camera assistant in the documentary unit run by Marian Grierson, sister of
John Grierson . He worked in the Central Africa Film Unit for many years, before work atITV and theBBC .MI5 blocked Peet's career progression at the BBC, suspicious of him for retaining links with his brother, acommunist who had defected toEast Germany . [http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.page9_obs_18aug1985.html] [http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.staff_obs_18aug1985.html] This was revealed only in the 1980s.With "Yesterday's Witness", Peet pioneered having ordinary members of the public telling their stories straight to the camera. He worked with others on the series, including James Cameron.
He and Olive had two sons, Graham and John, and twins, a boy and a girl, Michael and Susie.
ources
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1711597,00.html Obituary] in "
The Guardian "
* [http://web2.unt.edu/news/story.cfm?story=7393 Short biography]
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