Peter Jackson: A spy story

A kind and thoughtful man, Peter offered me the office car and driver when I arrived in New Delhi to help cover the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. “Take the day off and see the sights,” he said as he and his wife Adrienne waved me off. The turbaned office driver and I stopped at a few places to take photos. One stop was the Post Office. The square was deserted in the searing mid-day heat except for three beggars sitting by the roadside. Three days later a policeman came to the Reuters office. He said two suspected enemy spies - one Chinese and the other Pakistani - had been seen taking photos outside a strategic building. The car’s plate number had been noted and traced to Reuters. With his customary charm, Peter explained the situation and the policeman left satisfied.

It was just as well that I saw a bit of Delhi on my arrival. I was soon shipped off with Peter’s camping gear to Tezpur in Assam to await an Indian air force flight to the war zone in the Himalayas. Cooped up in a British tea planters’ clubhouse with 20 Indian and foreign journalists, I waited for six days until the trip was cancelled due to persistent bad weather. But it was not a complete waste of time. I learned how to play billiards. ■