peter worthington obituary

Read more about This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In time for Dien Bien Phu, perhaps. Please try again© 2020 Toronto Sun, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. He had been orphaned at age 10, worked as a water boy in a Mexican silver mine and witnessed his half-brother, superintendent at the mine, killed by the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa.
Not in any particular order, I covered the Algerian war of independence, the Congo, Angola insurgency, Jews fleeing Morocco, the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet, the coup in Laos, the Vietnam War, Indonesia’s invasion of Dutch New Guinea, India versus Pakistan, China’s invasion of India, Israel’s 1967 defeat of Egypt, China shelling Taiwan, riots in Belgium, civil disturbance in France, the mutiny of the Foreign Legion in Algeria, and so on.In the early days, when attending a crisis, my method was to start with a colour story, like getting roughed up by angry crowds, or confronting the police or the army, and gradually learning the politics of what was happening. My dad went to sea, became a ship’s engineer, was in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, fought in Central American wars (Nicaragua, Honduras) before heading off to serve in the First World War. I was first to report from Iraq.At the same time, British paratroopers had landed in Jordan to protect King Hussein from a coup, supposedly being planned by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.I headed to Amman, after interviewing Brig-Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem who staged the coup in Iraq.An hour after arriving in Amman, I went to the king’s palace to apply for an interview and got mixed up with a group of German businessmen who were to meet King Hussein. I liked irreverence, eccentricity, controversy, cheerfulness, mischief and independent thinking.

Publisher Creighton quipped at the time that he was pleased the charges were dismissed “but my co-accused is going to appeal.”In 1982, I quit the Sun’s board of directors and gave up the editorship when we voted — with one dissenting voice (mine) — to sell ourselves to Maclean-Hunter, thus trading our independence for financial security. I went on to Dallas for the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of JFK.An hour after arriving in Dallas on the redeye flight from Washington, I checked out the Dallas police station and inadvertently stumbled into the underground garage where the cops (who mistook me for an FBI agent) were ready to transport Lee Harvey Oswald to the jail. When the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was authorized to go to Gaza, I took courage in hand and asked managing editor J. Douglas MacFarlane to send me.He refused outright, and said a rookie reporter would never be sent on such an assignment. I later got a commission and at 18 was the youngest and least competent sub-lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve.On discharge in Vancouver, I used veteran credits to attend the University of British Columbia. I feel similarly.Looking back, it was a privilege to have stayed at the jungle hospital of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Gabon and conferred with the great man; also interviewing and visiting the Dalai Lama, first when he escaped from Tibet in 1959, and later at his Indian retreat of Dharamsala in 1962; and interview the likes of Nasser, Nehru, Chiang Kai-shek, Lumumba, Jomo Kenyata, Indira Ghandi, Alan Paton, Joe Louis and such.I treasure being with Heinrich Harrar, author of Seven Years in Tibet, in Dutch New Guinea where the stone-age Dani people had only recently been discovered. I applied through the French embassy in Tokyo, and got a terse “Cher Lieutenant” letter that said the rumour was false, but I could join the Foreign Legion for five years as a private. "If You Are Reading This, I Am Dead": Peter Worthington's Self-Penned Obituary If you are reading this, I am dead. I returned to Canada, took parachute training, joined the Princess Pats Mobile Strike Force, then quit the army.What to do? Publishing date: May 14, 2013 • • 14 minute read.

Celebrate and remember the lives we have lost in Worthington, Ohio. The three great villains of his childhood, he said, were Hitler, the Treasury Board and Mackenzie King. With another reporter, I hired a taxi in Damascus and we headed east across the roadless desert to Baghdad. I suppose my father’s colourful life before entering the army in the First World War affected my outlook. But I never expected to reach 80, much less 86! I worked on construction sites during the war and at 15 ran away from home to join the merchant navy, but was rejected. And then Lumumba giving a press conference while under house arrest — and escaping at night to attend rallies in his name.More memories: Ojukwu, in Biafra, with brand-new shoes and smoking State Express cigarettes, as Ben Wicks was scolded for having his hands in his pocket while in the presence of “His Excellency.”Of Albert Schweitzer whacking a leper not-so-gently on the head for not chipping faster at a huge rock from which he was making gravel.Of Laos, boasting proportionately the most Mercedes cars in the world in a country with only 24 km of paved roads — and a dead king being preserved in a tree trunk filled with honey for one year until burial.Of Dr. Tom Dooley, sick with terminal cancer, wanting me to rent an aircraft for him to fly to his jungle hospital for a farewell visit.Of meeting the Beatles in Hong Kong — and not knowing who they were or why the city was going berserk over their presence there.A fond memory is the RCMP searching my cluttered office for a letter by the head of RCMP security to then-prime minister Trudeau complaining against the PM’s dictum that security checks of Quebecers should not include questions about separatism.Bob Johnstone of the CBC, looking through the glass window with other TV journalists, quipped that the office was so cluttered “the RCMP may not find a letter, but they may lose a Mountie.”After checking under the coffee table, chairs, behind pictures on the wall, rifling through books for the letter, they found it a couple of hours later in the upper left hand drawer of my desk.These, and more, are the products of a career in journalism, and are part of what made it worthwhile.
Funeral Home Services for Peter are being provided by Heath Funeral Chapel.

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