‘A wonderful man’ – Graham Heslop remembered

Graham was a wonderful man: fun, compassionate, a brilliant cameraman and editor because he was a brilliant, instinctive journalist, a wonderful caring father and the stable anchor of every team.

Like all our cameramen and women he worked his guts out, took enormous but calculated risks because he believed in what he was doing, and never stopped until the job was done.

Then he was enormous, irrepressible fun, the life and soul of the party, with a ridiculous grin and a raucous laugh. He was also thoughtful, quiet, caring, sensitive both to the feelings of those he was working with, and those he was filming.

You only had to work with him once to look forward to the next opportunity. He made working really hard really fun, and he had that other innate quality of great cameramen; he seemed entirely without ego.

Graham started in the film developing department of ITN, but ended up filming many of the massive events he’d previously helped process; elections, floods, riots, wars, football violence, economic stories, courts – you name it, he had filmed it.

The most recent historical event he covered was the Libyan uprising. He did over two gruelling months with Lindsey Hilsum and Sarah Corp and captured incredible images of the fall of Tripoli.

Below: Graham’s footage from his time covering the fall of Tripoli.

He helped win us numerous awards. As a union representative he fought for his colleagues because he cared about them deeply.

It feels like a death in the family, because it is. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and his many friends.

Rest in Peace Graham.

Ben de Pear