Ah yes, the glamour of war reporting! Kim Willsher posted the picture above on her Facebook page yesterday, pointing out that it was 23 years to the day since she and her two colleagues - photographer Lynn Hilton and reporter Askold Krushelnycky - had spent "at least six hours hiding behind a low wall on a remote Croatian hill while Yugoslav/Serbian soldiers tried to kill us."
In just a couple of paragraphs of explanation of the story behind that story she captures the drama of the event:
"They knew we were British journalists, because we shouted in Serbo-Croat that we were, but it made them shoot even more. We were en route for Dubrovnik, which was under siege and under attack and were told there was a ceasefire and the road was safe, but we were forced to abandon our hire car as it was riddled with bullets (Avis later billed us for it).
After dark we ran for it and were eventually rescued by young Croatian lads defending their village who I doubt survived the war given the ferocity of the fighting in the area...
We carried on reporting from this war and others and had some scrapes, but I never came so close to dying as I did that day. I am raising a glass to the 23 years we very nearly never had, and to those colleagues who have not been so lucky."
Willsher is now in less warlike Paris, where she is the correspondent for the Guardian, Observer and Los Angeles Times. Krushelnycky, who I worked with on the Sunday Times, was writing for The European at the time the picture was taken. He is still working as a foreign correspondent for various outlets.
Lynn Hilton was, like Willsher, then with the Mail on Sunday. She has also retired from the "glamour" of war journalism to base herself in London, where she specialises in corporate and editorial photography.
The photo of the trio was taken some time after their death-defying exploits, in Bosnia, by Paul Lowe. He now teaches a masters programme in photojournalism and documentary photography at London College of Communication.
