Ian Parry

He attended Penmorfa County Primary and Prestatyn High Schools, and his interest in photography began while he was very young: by the age of 13 he had learned to develop and print his own film using a darkroom set up by his uncle.

Parry left school at the age of 16 and was taken on by the local newspaper Rhyl Journal as a trainee photographer; the editor Brian Barratt later praised his "nose for a good news picture".

[5] When an uprising against the government of Nicolae Ceaușescu broke out in Romania in December 1989, Parry was working for The Sunday Times and argued that he should be sent on assignment to cover events there.

[6] He spent several days in Bucharest taking pictures of the city recovering after Ceaușescu was overthrown, photographing soldiers with flowers in their arms, as well as funerals for people killed in the revolution.

[1] On 28 December he was returning to Britain and managed to find a place on an Antonov An-24 airliner operated by TAROM that was travelling out of Bucharest to Belgrade to pick up relief supplies.