Peter Clifton Richards (September 25, 1909 - 1992) was a British salesman and news correspondent as well as a civilian internee at the Santo Tomás Internment Camp in Mania. Born in Streatham, Surrey, his father served in the HM Consular Service, with postings to Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, as Vice-Consul (where he was posted when Richards was born), Consul and Deputy Commissioner for the South Pacific, Consul at Callao, Peru, and Consul-General in Chicago. Richards' parents sent him to Sherborne Preparatory School in 1919 and he attended Sherborne School from September 1923 until July 1927. After graduating from Sherborne, Richards started working for the Anglo-South American Bank. He worked for the bank until 1935 when he became a salesman for D. Gestetner Ltd, which manufactured duplicating machines, and Gestetner sent him to Singapore and Manila to sell their machines. He met Dolores Opisso while working in Manila, whom he married. Richards was in the Philippines on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, pulling the United States into World War II. The Japanese attacked the Philippines (then an American Commonwealth) on December 8 and entered Manila on January 2, 1942. Both Peter and Dolly were interned at the Santo Tomás Internment Camp in Manila along with thousands of other 'enemy civilians'. While interned at Santo Tomás, Richards was in charge of using the camp's Gestetner machine to reproduce camp orders, regulations, and forms, all under the watchful eye of the Commandant, thus ensuring that Richards did not print any anti-Japanese propaganda. Surprisingly, the Japanese allowed Richards to print some other documents on the machine, including a beginning Spanish booklet to teach children in the camp Spanish, and the occasional camp newsletter. It was with this Gestetner machine that Richards printed his eight-page 'Liberation Bulletin' on the day of the camp's liberation, February 3, 1945. After liberation, Peter and Dolly left Manila on April 14, 1945, and arrived on May 25, 1945, in Liverpool. Richards joined the Reuters News Agency in August 1945 and he and Dolly left for Manila in July 1947 where he was Reuter's Manila Correspondent.



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