Reporters and wolves

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7428.1375

BMJ 2003;327:1375 (13 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7428.1375

Filler

Endpiece

Reporters and wolves

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Recalling his father, a professional photographer and journalist,Joseph Brodsky wrote, "For several years he freelanced all overthe country under contract to the All Union Agricultural Exhibitin Moscow... but the pay was less than meagre and the threeof us existed solely on my mother's salary as a clerk in theborough's development council... [It] appears that most of hislife was spent on foot ('reporters, like wolves, live by theirpaws,' was his favourite utterance), among ships, sailors, captains,cranes, cargo... he liked to be near the water, he adored thesea. In that country [the Soviet Union], this is the closestone gets to freedom. Even looking at it is sometimes enough,and he looked at it, and photographed it, for most of his life."At the end of their lives, the Soviets refused to let Brodsky'saged parents out to visit their son.