Gerald Priestland - Early Life and Work

Early Life and Work

Gerald Priestland was educated at Charterhouse and New College, Oxford. He began his work at the BBC with a six-month spell writing obituary pieces for broadcast news. Indeed, he even jokingly wrote his own obituary shortly before leaving the job for a post as a sub-editor in the news gathering operation. In 1954, he became the youngest person (at 26 years) to work as a BBC foreign correspondent, having been sent by the controversial Editor of News, Tahu Hole, to the BBC's office in New Delhi. Between 1958 and 1961, Priestland was relocated to Washington DC where he covered, among other things, the successful election of John F Kennedy. Following this, he spent most of the next four years as the BBC's Middle East correspondent, before requesting a transfer back to London as a television newsreader.

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