Rory Peck - the symbol for them all

This year marks a milestone in the story of the Trust. Ten years ago Rory Peck was killed in Russia doing what he loved: recording on camera great events. In order to do so he exhibited qualities which he possessed in abundance: courage, dash, imagination and a belief in the importance of what he was doing.

He had transferred his attention from Afghanistan to Russia only a short time before; a logical step as he recorded the end of the Soviet era and the first stirrings of Russia’s gradual re-emergence from the Soviet night. During the Afghan-Soviet war he was one of a small band of freelance cameramen who kept the story in the news before American support for the Afghans brought the attention of the big networks with it. As a regular visitor to the North-West Frontier in those years, I used to see him from time to time and, although I never knew him well, he, his partner Peter Jouvenal and several others showed that vast resources are less important than courage, vision and endurance in any great endeavour. Peshawar was an extraordinary place in the 1980s, particularly the early to mid 1980s, and Rory and his associates added a particular flavour to the mix.

Rory was not the only brave and able cameraman working there. He was perhaps not even the most brilliant maker of pictures there. But, he encapsulated so exactly the combination of characteristics that a successful freelance needs that it is entirely right that he should give his name to the Trust. At a time when more and more journalists are dying in the front line, the spirit that animates them is the same spirit that animated him. In using his name, the Trust makes him the symbol for them all.

The Most. Hon The Marquess of Salisbury PC, DL
Patron, The Rory Peck Trust

The Rory Peck Awards Brochure 2003

• Programme
• Rory Peck - the symbol for them all
• From the Chairman
• Keeping True
• From Sony
• The Trust and Sony
• Judges' Reports
• The Overseas Project
• Acknowledgements
• Winners and Finalists

  
  

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