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 about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

and his BBC 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. 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 (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

, who suffered three terms of imprisonment for his refusal to obey military orders. Peet was educated at the Quaker Sidcot School, 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, 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 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 1946 ...

in London, north Africa and Greece, where he was taken prisoner on Kos, 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 Maurice William Broomfield (2 February 1916 – 4 October 2010) was an English photographer whose images of post-war British industry were credited with capturing the optimistic spirit of the time. Life and work Born in Draycott, Derbyshir ...

, 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 pioneering 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. Fla ...

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

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

and the BBC. Unknown until 1985, MI5 blocked Peet's career progression at the BBC in 1965, suspicious of him for retaining links with his older brother, John, a communist who defected to East Germany in 1950 (see:

"Christmas tree" files From the 1930s until the 1980s, the BBC kept a number of clandestine files on applicants accused by the British Security Service (MI5, some of whose agents were stationed within the BBC) of being political subversives, in particular communists or ...

). 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. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...

. 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