Name Stephen Peet Parents Hubert Peet Spouse Olive Peet (m. 1948–2005) | Died December 22, 2005 Role Filmmaker Movies A Far Cry | |
Children Graham Peet, Susie Peet, Michael Peet, John Peet People also search for Olive Peet, Graham Peet, Susie Peet, Michael Peet, John Peet | ||
Stephen Hubert Peet (16 February 1920 – 22 December 2005) was a British filmmaker, best known as a pioneer of illustrated oral history and his BBC television series Yesterday's Witness (1969–1981).
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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 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, Hubert Peet (1886 - 1951), 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, 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 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 in London, north Africa and Greece, where he was taken prisoner, to be interned in Germany.
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. He worked in the Central Africa Film Unit for seven years, making narrative educational films for village audiences, before work at ITV 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.
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. 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.
Personal life
Stephen and Olive Peet had two sons, Graham and John, and twins, a boy and a girl, Michael and Susie.