Peter Stanford, The Telegraph Journalist Profile

Articles

Bear Grylls: My wife is hot, kind and smart - I'm lucky

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Peter Stanford

Born in 1974 and raised on the Isle of Wight, Edward ‘Bear’ Grylls OBE was educated at Eton and Birkbeck College. He was the UK’s youngest Chief Scout and served as a Trooper in the British Special Forces, but at 23 broke his back in a parachute jump. A year later, he was the youngest Briton to reach the summit of Everest. He became a household name after his adventure reality series Born Survivor aired in 2006 – it ran for seven seasons, winning two Primetime Emmy awards.
'We should be growing the green belt, not eroding it'

2 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Peter Stanford

The world's richest architect on rows with the King, opposing Angela Rayner and still working at 90Reaching 90 can put those lucky enough to do so into a mellow mood, keen on looking back over their long lives. But not Norman Foster, or Lord Foster of Thames Bank as he has been since 1999, the world's best-known architect and a global "starchitect" for the past half century, who reached the landmark last Sunday. "I haven't really had time to think about it.
The London-born teenager set to become Britain’s first millennial saint

1 month ago | independent.co.uk | Peter Stanford

In FocusThe Catholic Church looks set to canonise the late Carlo Acutis, a tech-savvy youngster who died in 2006, and with it, usher in a new era of religion at a time when worship is on the decline, writes Peter StanfordSaint-making in the Catholic Church – or canonisation as it is called – is traditionally a drawn-out, opaque process with the successful candidates who have emerged from it in recent times usually worthy but unsurprising long-dead clerics and nuns.
Notebook: Peter Stanford

1 month ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Peter Stanford

Each to their ownI HAD walked down the wooden jetty to look at a pod of dolphins which my nature-loving daughter had spotted in the harbour. She is on a mission to cure me of the lingering effects of a nature-phobic childhood. If I so much as stroked Topsy, my Auntie Rita’s lovable mongrel, my mum would take me to the bathroom to wash my hands. “All animals are dirty,” she instilled in me; “so stay away from them.”I am pleased to report that I am in recovery.
I grew up in an MI6 spy camp – people held classified conversations on my sofa

1 month ago | msn.com | Peter Stanford

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
I grew up in a top-secret spy camp

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Peter Stanford

Alistair Wood was instructed never to talk about his cloak-and-dagger upbringing at Fort Monckton. Fifty years on, he shares his storySpying is in Alistair Wood's DNA. Both his parents were agents in the SIS - the Secret Intelligence Service - better known now as MI6. So was his great aunt Agnes, while among his mother's circle of trusted friends was Harold "Shergy" Shergold, head of SIS's Soviet Bloc operations and credited as the model for John le Carré's George Smiley.
Pope Francis buried after funeral attended by world leaders, royals and 400,000 mourners – as it happened | Pope Francis | The Guardian

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Amy Sedghi |Tom Ambrose |Sam Jones |Harriet Sherwood |William Christou |Angela Giuffrida | +5 more

Italy’s interior minister says 400,000 mourners in St Peter’s Square and surrounding area for funeral of Pope Francis
There is a cancer at the heart of the Catholic Church and Francis's successor must tackle it

2 months ago | telegraph.co.uk | Peter Stanford

Yet to measure Francis against his pledge, soon after his election, to take "decisive action" quickly is to see him fail. The Commission for the Protection of Minors was his structural answer, established in 2014 as part of the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the curia. It even included on its board victims of clerical abuse.
Pope Francis obituary

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Peter Stanford

The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope in March 2013 was unexpected, even to the then cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires himself. He may have come a distant second in the previous papal conclave in 2005, but at 76 and, following the resignation on the grounds of old age of the candidate who had come first back then, the 85-year-old Benedict XVI – Bergoglio was convinced that a younger man was needed.
I understand why people are angry

Mar 29, 2025 | msn.com | Peter Stanford

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.