I watched a copy I made of the BBC program On the Frontline in which the BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen looked at the impact war had on the people who reported it.

I’d only really noticed him from his work on breakfast time, a job he was never suited to, so discovering his war work and the fact that his best friend was killed moments after he stepped out of a car in the Lebanon was shocked to hear and worse to see.

If I told you the story of how I read War Junkie last summer and got a little closer to understanding how to use my Nikon at the balloon festival you may remember the name Jon Steele. After reading his story it was good to see him on this program as well, looking happy and well but telling Bowen something of the darkness he had seen and how it affected him.

How, as he said, he had, “lost count of the number of times the eyepiece of may camera had filled up with tears as I filmed”. We’re all fortunate that these people go there, risk life, health and sanity to report on and question what is happening but we have to remember there are lives and tragedies there for them as well.