His work focused mainly on Central, Southern and Eastern Africa, and from 1957 to 1965 he covered news stories of a social, economic, environmental and political nature, getting to know nationalist leaders such as Joshua Nkomo and Ndabaningi Sithole of Zimbabwe, Dr. Hastings (Kumuzu) Banda of Malawi, and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia.
[11] Sanger wrote prolifically on the subjects of African and Canadian politics, the Commonwealth, international development, and the environment, as reflected in the following list of publications.
The archive includes more than 100 pocket notebooks from his work in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa from 1960 to 1965, covering elections, the economy, land reforms, decolonisation and civil unrest.
A large proportion of the notebooks are written in Pitman shorthand, which are undergoing a digitised transcription process before they can be made available for research.
[42] Another archival item, in Sanger's handwriting (also containing newspaper cuttings, cartoons and photographs), is a large notebook entitled 'Journal of an Extraordinary Heads of Government Meeting, Lusaka, Zambia, August 1979', but covering many other dates and events from February to September of that year, held by the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
[43] Sanger married the journalist and activist Penny Ketchum (1931-2017)[44] in Surrey, in June 1959;[2] they had four sons (Matthew, Richard, Toby and Daniel) and ten grandchildren (Ariel, Maeve, Malcolm, Claire, Louis, Tommy, Alia, Adam, Antoine and Eliza).