Inci Modiano at OBE ceremony celebration for her husband

Inci Modiano at OBE ceremony celebration for her husband

This photo was taken in Athens in the 1970s, at the ceremony at the British embassy where they honored me with the OBE, Officer of the Order of the British Empire. My wife Inci Modiano is on the right. My brothers' wife, Nina Hassid, is on the left. I don?t remember the names of the other people in the photo. I always felt passionate about my profession as a journalist. It really takes you over and controls your life. You are no longer a free man. At every moment you must be on the alert just in case something important is happening in your area. It is a very exciting job but a very demanding one. You are on call 24/7. The period between 1967 and 1974 was particularly interesting because a bunch of army colonels imposed a dictatorship in Greece. Actually mine was a risky profession to be in. From one moment to the next you couldn't tell whether they would slap you in jail because of something disagreeable you wrote in The Times. So much so that the British Ambassador gave my wife his bedside telephone number just in case something happened in the middle of the night. But they didn't touch me, although I was sharply critical of the regime in my reports. There were many other important issues that I covered during the 38 years I was in the profession. One of the big issues was Cyprus. Towards the end of my career I was awarded the OBE by the Queen of England for a job well done. It was the same award that had been presented to my father a few years earlier. During all those years as a foreign correspondent only once or twice there were references in Greek newspapers pointing out that I was Jewish, simply because they hadn't liked something I had written.
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