What a life this man has had ! Terry Spencer was in Southwood Cheltenham College from 1932 to 1936 when it was in Lypiatt Road under the housemastership of the formidably tall Mr Bishop. After College, he read Engineering at Birmingham University. During the war, he served with distinction in the RAF, flying both Spitfires and Hurricanes and commanding two squadrons. He was shot down twice and escaped from the Germans once. In one instance, he parachuted out over the Baltic at 30ft above the water and once held the entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the lowest parachute jump on record. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Belgian Croix de Guerre with Palme. This gave him a taste for excitement and after he was demobbed, he flew single-handed to South Africa where he became involved in some diamond smuggling, flying across the African borders with the diamonds hidden under the front seat of his single-engine plane. Fortunately, he soon became much more interested in photography, a hobby he had pursued since he was given a box camera at the age of twelve. He opened an aerial photography business and settled down to a career in South Africa. In 1952, Terry stared to freelance for Life magazine and continued working for the magazine for the next twenty years until it closed in 1972. During this period, he covered news, features, and show-business stories as well as every war and trouble spot all over the world, including Kenya, the Congo, Vietnam, Algeria, the Middle East, Cuba and Indonesia. In a recent article in Amateur Photographer, he was asked if he worried about dying while on assignment. H replied, 'After surviving the Second World War, I never worried about being killed in Vietnam or any other war. I have never been afraid of death but I was always terrified of being hurt or wounded and carried a hypodermic syringe of morphine in my camera bag at all times. I've never even had a scratch in all the wars I covered. The only time I was ever hurt was when I was attacked by Paul McCartney after I discoved his hideaway in Scotland. After Life closed, Terry moved on to People, where he worked for the next twenty years and although he is stilshooting pictures an syndicating his work through Camera Press in London, he whas spent most of his time recently writing, with his wife, the actress, Lesley Brook, a book about his life, Living Dangerously. Spencer also published a book called It Was Thirty Years Ago Today in 1995. Description on jacket reads: "An album of photographs capturing the inside life of the Beatles (taken by photographer Terry Spencer whilst travelling with the band in 1963)." His publisher provided this biography:
