Wolverhampton Literary Festival: Peter Rhodes - review

From an impromptu meeting with the Kremlin in Malta to a North Pole rescue mission to rounding up penguins in the Falklands – Peter Rhodes has certainly had an interesting career.

The award-winning journalist spent 30 years with the Express & Star before taking early retirement – although he has continued to write his daily column much to the delight of readers.

In a talk at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Sunday, he treated the audience to some of the highlights and the odd low point of his career as well as some of the more bizarre, fascinating and downright dangerous assignments he was given.

Many came from a period he describes as the golden age of journalism in the 1980s due in no small part to the improved technology. This came about, perhaps inevitably, from the golden age of misprints when reporters handed their copy over to the printers.

Such misprints included a women's page recipe when 'avoid peeping in the oven' lost the second P and repeatedly in death notices when 'it's lonely here without you' would often be typed in as 'lovely'.

But as a roving reporter and writer his career took him across the globe including to the New Territories in 1996 to witness the Staffordshire Regiment on exercises shortly before the handover of Hong Kong to China.

What stuck with him, however, was watching two British Army officers take two People's Liberation Army officials round an ante room jotting down which tables, chairs and other equipment would be handed over.

"What we were witnessing was the end of an empire," he said "And a reminder that it does not have to end in blood and tears but can be two officers with a clipboard. If only all political movements could end as peacefully as this."

Less peaceful was his journey to Sarajevo, aboard a Hercules plane resuming the United Nations supplies deliveries to trapped Bosnian war victims - a trip so dangerous military officials had requested he have a one million dollar insurance waiver.

A briefing the night before had started 'if the flight is not shot down . . .' - leading to a very disturbed night for our reporter Rhodes.

What most amused the audience from his anecdote was the story that did not make the news - the fact that having safely avoided fire and dropped off supplies the Hercules would not start when due to make the perilous return journey.

Peter recalled a technician pulling off panels inside the plane and bypassing safety circuits to get enough power to start the engine.

"He said the US version of the plane had special kit to get over this," said Peter. "When asked why we didn't have any he replied 'because they [the MoD] are a penny-pinching bunch of b******s.'"

Peter admitted though: "But it was not all blood and thunder. Most of my jobs were simply bizarre."

He remembers taking a call from Phil Bateman, a city councillor who was in the audience and at that time worked for a bus company that was sponsoring an Arctic explorer, Pen Hadow, in a bid to make it to the North Pole alone.

Mr Bateman invited Peter to join the rescue mission. However, all other media had turned down the offer because although getting there wasn't a problem the weather could turn and leave a reporter stranded for weeks. The Express & Star said Peter could go.

Peter had intended to greet the explorer with the words 'Mr Hadow I presume' in homage to those said by Henry Morton Stanley when he rescued missionary Dr Livingstone.

However, after a 14-hour flight in a small plane and an egg sandwich Peter reveals: "I said Mr . . . and then threw up, to my shame. A horrible experience in the North Pole because it was frozen before it hit the ground."

More disappointing was the fact that Mr Hadow then refused to be rescued - although he was finally rescued two weeks later.

The most memorable moment from Peter's entertaining review of his career was watching him play the part of a penguin as he told of a trip to the Falklands in 1988, and the quest he was given to get a picture of a colony of penguins on the beach with the British light infantry behind.

The penguins were not an issue, he explains, they are inquisitive creatures and tend to gather around you.

"Turns out I am a penguin whisperer, I can round up penguins," he says demonstrating the gentle movements needed and acting out their usual response.

The infantry, however, were more difficult to control as they were unsure of what to do and kept disturbing the penguins!

Peter's talk flew by and ended with a question and answer session largely probing the changing landscape of the media and journalism.

The consensus was that the golden age of journalism that Peter remembers so fondly was lost with social media and fake news playing a very damaging role in society today.