My husband, Peter Brown, who has died aged 88, was a West Country journalist whose career took him from reporting village news in the Forest of Dean to covering some of the biggest stories in the country as a BBC political correspondent based in Bristol.
He was born in a hillside cottage in Longhope on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. His father, Albert, was a wood turner who died when Peter was eight, after which his mother, Gladys (nee Jones), took a job at the local Gloster Aircraft factory, where she stayed for the rest of her working life. In many ways Peter’s childhood was similar to that of the author Laurie Lee, who was brought up in Slad, about 40 miles to the south-east. He had two grandmothers living at either end of the village and was sent on errands between them. He also sat beneath the church organ to blow the bellows for sixpence.
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