Peter Fairley (2 November 1930 – 5 August 1998) was a British science

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who was the Science Editor for

Independent Television News Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, ...

and ''

TV Times ''TV Times'' is a British television listings magazine published by Future plc. It was originally published by Independent Television Publications, owned by the participating ITV companies. The magazine was acquired by IPC Media in 1989, which ...

'' magazine the late sixties and early seventies. His name became synonymous with ITN's extensive live coverage of the

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moon landing missions. His daughter is Josephine Fairley, journalist, magazine editor and founder with her husband of

Green & Black's Green & Black's is a British chocolate company founded in 1991. The company produces a range of organic food products, including: chocolate bars, ice cream, biscuits and hot chocolate. Green & Black's was bought by Cadbury in 2005, and later ...

chocolate company.

Biography

His father was a telecommunications engineer. He attended

Sutton Valence School Sutton Valence School (SVS) is an independent school near Maidstone in southeast England. It has 560 pupils. It is a co-educational day and boarding school. There are three senior boarding houses: Westminster, St Margaret's and Sutton. History ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...

and he was then the science correspondent for the London ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' and made numerous radio broadcasts in the 1960s. In April 1961, while employed at the Evening Standard, Fairley, based on warnings sent to ships in the Pacific and a hunch, predicted in his column that the U.S.S.R. was about to launch its first manned space flight. The column appeared on the front page of the paper, and two days later, Russia launched Yuri Gagarin into space. Fairley's salary was doubled as a result of his prediction. He was also a familiar face to

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 ...

's younger viewers with regular appearances on ''

Magpie Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...

'' and the children's science fiction series ''

Timeslip ''Timeslip'' is a British children's science fiction television series made by ATV for the ITV network and broadcast between 1970 and 1971. It was first broadcast on Friday evenings at around 5:10-5:15pm in the ATV region with the other ITV re ...

'' as well as science articles in ITV's children's magazine ''

Look-in ''Look-in'' was a children's magazine centred on ITV's television programmes in the United Kingdom, and subtitled "The Junior ''TVTimes''". It ran from 9 January 1971 to 12 March 1994.cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

aged 67. Archive material collected by Fairley during his coverage of space missions became the basis of the Fairley Archive of Space Exploration (FASE)

Further biographical information from the cover of ''The Conquest of Pain''

Peter Fairley is Science Editor of Independent Television News, TV Times and Capital Radio. He has been reporting science and medicine for more than twenty years, and has written ten books. In 1968, he was chosen as Science Writer of the Year and awarded a Glaxo Travelling Fellowship; the award was used to finance the travelling needed to research this book. Peter Fairley calls pain "the most fascinating and possibly the most important subject I have ever tackled".

Bibliography

* ''Magpie's ABC of Space'', Independent Television Publications, 1969 * ''Man on the Moon'', Littlehampton Book Services, 1969 * ''Project X: the exciting story of British invention'', Mayflower Books 1970 * ''Peter Fairley's Space Annual'', 1970 * ''The Conquest of Pain'', 1978

Notes

* ''Peter Fairley of ITN fame is not to be confused with Canada-based science write
Peter Fairley
known in North America for his writing on energy, technology and the environment. Fairley is also a member of the board of directors of th
Society of Environmental Journalists
''

References

1930 births 1998 deaths British male journalists British reporters and correspondents People educated at Sutton Valence School Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge {{UK-tv-bio-stub