My father-in-law, Peter Watson-Wood, who has died aged 92, was known for many things – notably as a photographer, film-maker, producer and all-round entrepreneur.
Born to Molly (nee Payton) and Dougie Watson-Wood, a journalist, in Sutton, Surrey, at the age of eight Peter contracted meningitis. Not expected to live through the night, he was kept awake and alive by Molly reading to him – instilling an undying love of stories.
He escaped death again in the kitchen Morrison shelter when a small bomb penetrated the roof during the Battle of Britain and landed on his bed. It threatened to blow up the house but not before Dougie heaved it out of the upstairs window.
In 1946, after leaving Sutton high school for boys, Peter was drafted into the RAF and was chosen for the bomb disposal force – digging his way across Britain in search of live bombs.
His working life began as a counter clerk at the labour exchange in Ealing, however he soon got a job at an advertising agency, John Mitchell & Partners, as an account manager. In 1952 Peter had front-row seats to King George VI’s funeral as the procession passed the agency window. Through a friendship with the actor and entertainer Tony Newley, Peter’s circle included stars of the silver screen, such as Peter Sellers and Diana Dors.
Visiting Penzance in 1956, Peter met the ‘“smudger” (tourist photographer) Mike Courtney, and joined him in business. They erected the now famous Land’s End signpost - charging tourists to have their pictures taken – and expanded to John O’Groats and Aberdeen Beach.
Peter moved to Cornwall permanently in 1959, and by the late 1960s was working as a local news cameraman. When the Torrey Canyon disaster struck in 1967, he managed to secure exclusive footage of the prime minister, Harold Wilson, viewing the stricken tanker; ITN picked up his story for the 6 O’Clock News and henceforth commissioned him to make television documentaries.
For three decades he filmed far and wide. From meditating with the Beatles in India in 1967, he travelled to New Guinea for a series called The World About Us (1973) and defied the land speed record at Black Rock Desert for a BBC film on the Thrust 2, For Britain and the Hell of It (1987). Through his work he also befriended many of the St Ives painters, such as Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton and Barbara Hepworth.
In the 90s, Peter turned to producing feature films, among them Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1995), starring Elizabeth Hurley, Tales of the Riverbank (2008), featuring the voices of Jim Broadbent and Steve Coogan, and, finally, The Wicker Tree (2011), a sequel to the 1973 cult Scottish horror film The Wicker Man.
Refusing retirement, Peter created paintings and wrote poetry and two autobiographies.
A marriage to Wilma Smith in 1958 ended in divorce. Peter is survived by his second wife, Annie (nee Howard), whom he married in 1987, his sons, Gary, from his first marriage, and Christopher, from his second, two stepchildren, Michael and Katie, and eight grandchildren.
