Peter Millar

Peter Millar roundly entertained members of the Society with a hilarious, high-speed gallop through his international career as journalist and writer, in a talk entitled “Making History (and making it up)”. He described how he learned some essentials of his craft in the Dave Goddard school of imaginative editing, on Reuters old World Desk, skills which he later practised at the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times.

Introducing his latest book, 1989 The Berlin Wall - My Part in its Downfall, Peter described how, years after his time as a Reuters correspondent in East Berlin, he was allowed to see his Stasi secret police files. His reaction? Surprised that they missed so much, particularly his late-night forays to meet his best contacts in a neighbourhood bar. ■