Stephen Hubert Peet (16 February 1920 – 22 December 2005) was an English filmmaker, best known as a pioneer of illustrated

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...

and his

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television series '' Yesterday's Witness'' (1969–1981).

Parental family and early life

Stephen Hubert Peet was born on 16 February 1920, in Penge, South London, the youngest child of Hubert William Peet (1886 - 1951) and his wife, Edith Mary, born Scott. He had two older sisters and an older brother,

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

. Stephen's parents were Quakers, unlike his four grandparents who were Congregationalist. His mother's parents had served as missionaries. Stephen's father was a journalist, who wrote religious news and also edited the weekly Quaker magazine '' The Friend'' from 1932 to 1949. He was also an absolutist

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

, who suffered three terms of imprisonment for his refusal to obey military orders. Peet was educated at the Quaker

Sidcot School Sidcot School is a British co-educational private school for boarding and day pupils, associated with the Religious Society of Friends. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school is based in the Mendip Hills near the village of W ...

, Somerset, where he met first his future wife, Olive, as a younger fellow pupil (they married in July 1948 )).

Second World War

He was, like his father, a conscientious objector in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, serving with the

Friends Ambulance Unit The Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914 to 1919, 1939 to 1946 and ...

in London, north Africa and Greece, where he was taken prisoner on

Kos Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 37,089 (2021 census), making ...

, to become a civilian internee in Austria, then Germany. Following release after the war he began film work for the FAU, and then, with a former FAU colleague, Maurice Broomfield, for

International Student Service The World university Service (WUS) is an international organisation founded in 1920 in Vienna as an offshoot of the World Student Christian Federation to meet the needs of students and academics in the aftermath of World War I. After World War II, ...

Film career

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 John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's '' ...

. He worked in the Central Africa Film Unit for seven years, making narrative educational films for village audiences, before work at ITV and the

. Unknown until 1985,

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

blocked Peet's career progression at the BBC in 1965, suspicious of him for retaining links with his older brother,

, a communist who defected to

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

in 1950 (see:

"Christmas tree" files From the 1930s until the 1980s, the BBC kept a number of clandestine files on applicants accused by MI5 of political subversion, in particular those deemed to be communists or fellow travellers of communism, and also members of far-right organisat ...

). 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 James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...

. The BBC Two series in included a programme - ''"Prisoners of conscience: No to the State"'', no doubt a subject close to Stephen Peet's heart.A book of the series was published by BBC Books; 1st edition in April 1979.

Personal life

Stephen and Olive Peet had two sons, Graham and John, and twins, a boy and a girl, Michael and Susie.

References

Sources

Obituary
in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...