Veteran journalist dies

VETERAN Cyprus-based British journalist John Bierman died at his home on Wednesday after suffering a massive stroke on New Year’s Day at the age of 76.
Described as “a tough, iconoclastic journalist”, Bierman and his then fiancée Hilary Brown bought a farmhouse in the Paphos district in 1973, only months before the Turkish invasion, which he covered extensively as the correspondent for the BBC.
After ten years travelling widely to cover news stories in the world’s hotspots while keeping Cyprus as a base, the couple moved to Toronto in 1984 but returned to Cyprus several years later, where they remained since.
Not only was he a renowned journalist, Bierman was also a prolific author, penning ten books, including Hero of the Holocaust; Fire in the Night with journalist and author Colin Smith, who lives in Cyprus, Alamein: War Without Hate, also with Colin Smith; and The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy: The Real English Patient.
Bierman was born in London in 1929. He was the son of an antiques dealer and was evacuated to the countryside during World War II. He joined the army at 18 and served in the Royal marines before moving on to journalism in the UK, eventually landing a job at the Daily Express. In the mid sixties he moved to the BBC and was stationed in Northern Ireland in 1972 before buying a house in Cyprus.
Over the past two years, Bierman had not been well. He suffered kidney failure on a visit to Canada and was given a kidney transplant by his son Jonathan. He had also suffered two heart attacks and had a bypass operation in 2004.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.