Kate Peyton
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Katherine Mary Peyton (b. December 13, 1965, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; d. February 9, 2005 in Mogadishu) was Senior Producer for the BBC Johannesburg Bureau 2002-05. She was killed in a shooting incident in Somalia whilst reporting on that country's nascent peace process.
Kate Peyton's death as the result of a shooting incident in Somalia "robbed Africa of one of its most compassionate observers and her family and friends of a person of matchless warmth".
She had gone to the Somali capital Mogadishu to report on the peace process and was standing outside a hotel popular with politicians and journalists when she was murdered. Her brief in Somalia was to record the first signs of hope in that country's recent history. Kate Peyton was a journalist of wide experience, having worked in African and Middle Eastern conflict zones.
Katherine Mary Peyton was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in 1965. She was educated at Culford School and read Civil Engineering at Manchester University. However, while at university she found herself increasingly drawn to books and journalism and resolved to make a career as a producer in broadcasting.
On leaving university she got her first job, at BBC Radio Suffolk, and also worked at Radio Merseyside and GMR. Her long-term ambition as a young radio producer was eventually to work in South Africa, a country she had first visited with her family in 1979.
She finally moved to South Africa to work in the 1990s, firstly for the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC as a freelance producer. She was eventually appointed to the post of Africa Producer for the BBC early in the new millennium. She covered many major stories, including the emerging Aids crisis in South Africa, the Mozambique floods and the humanitarian emergency of Darfur.
Kate had wide and varied interests. She sang in a choir in Johannesburg and loved music of all kinds, particularly the vibrant music of the African townships. She also selected African art and painted pottery. When not "on the road" in Africa, she loved to relax in her garden or to make clothes for her friends and their children.
