Ms Margaret Gipsy Moth

 

 

Bad Ass From The Get Go

In a world of  people now made famous for doing nothing, who then flit from pillar to post searching for something to be good at belatedly, it is always refreshing to come across people who are just good at what they do first and foremost. Margaret Moth was one of those people.

No BS. No fan fare. No sob stories. No selfies.

The fact that she was a woman of coolness with balls of steel does not hurt our appreciation of her one bit. Our profiles of extraordinary people continues then with Ms Margaret Gipsy Moth.

 

The Day Job

Ms Moth was a photo journalist who worked for CNN. She was quirky. With her black kohl eyeliner and her normal uniform of black clothes and combat boots she was also pure rock n’ roll! She looked like Joan Jett with a camera. But along with her looks she was notoriously fearless. She would demand assignments in the most dangerous places in the world and was known for keeping the camera rolling at all costs, even when being directly shot at. She covered places like the Gulf War, Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the civil war in Georgia and the war in Bosnia.

 

She was also technically sound, dedicated and inspiring. Mothers who seek kick ass role models for their girls could do worse than look in the direction of Ms Moth’s unflinching legacy.

 

Born in Gisborne New Zealand, 1951, Margaret Wilson eventually changed her name to Margaret Gipsy Moth after the planes she loved to jump out of barefooted(!) She did not aspire to be a photojournalist, it came about because of her love for history and the desire to be present as it unfolded.

As possibly New Zealand’s first camarawoman, she dispatched to the US and worked in Texas for seven years before moving to CNN in 1980.

 

Sniper Fire

Whilst other journalists would (sanely) take cover behind their marked cars during sniper fire, Ms Moth would place her focus on capturing the scene as it happened. She was famous for outpacing her own security and leaving them in her wake when there was a historic moment to capture.

In 1992 Ms Moth was shot in the face by sniper fire in Sarajevo which shattered her jaw, blew out her teeth and destroyed her tongue to the extent that she was left ‘sounding like she was drunk’ for the rest of her life.

Her colleagues rallied round, unsure if she would even survive. They were angry on her behalf as the van she had traveled in was clearly marked as a press vehicle. She however, wasn’t having any of it ‘We came into their war. Fair’s fair.’

 

Back To Work

Almost a year after being shot Ms moth was back behind the camera in Sarajevo cracking jokes, reassuring her team mates that she was just fine and talking through her damaged tongue. She had joked to her colleagues that she had returned to the scene of the crime to find her missing teeth.

Nobody ever heard her complain about the painful reconstructive surgeries she underwent to piece her face back together. Even through skin grafts harvested from her back to close the wounds on her face, or the prosthetics used to knit the bones together, or the therapy to learn to speak, eat and drink again, not one of her colleagues can remember a single moment of complaint.

 

Balls Of Steel, Heart Like Cotton Wool

Ms Moth was known for her generosity and many kindnesses and support shown to her colleagues and others. In tense situations she would keep everybody’s spirits up by playing risque Truth Or Dare or rollerblading in a Baghdad hotel lobby.

 

She helped fellow journalist newbies by showing them how to survive the tough war torn conditions, at one point leading a new CNN correspondent gingerly through rubble that almost certainly contained land mines. Clearly from her grateful colleagues like the young CNN correspondent and journalist Ms Christiane Amanpour, Ms Moth eschewed the tired cliche expected of women and never felt threatened by young up and coming female colleagues. Instead she would reach out to help them. She had visited another photojournalist that had also been injured in the line of fire and renewed his sense of what was still possible.

She loved animals. In the stifling desert heat of Jordan she refused to travel in a horse pulled wagon, opting to carry her own heavy equipment to spare the horse.

 

Cancer

When Ms Moth was diagnosed with terminal cancer, it was the 25 stray cats that she had befriended and looked after in Istanbul that were her main concern. She only relaxed when fellow CNN cameraman Mr Joe Duran promised to take care of them.

 

 

‘Nuff Respect

For those of us weighted down by the feeling that we owe our lives to someone or something else, Ms Moth lived life to the fullest, completely on her own terms. Nobody imposed their dull view of what she could and couldn’t do on her life. She just didn’t give a stuff. As with her life, she met her impending death as matter of factly as was her nature and left the drama to the divas. Death was merely another adventure that was entirely acceptable because as she herself put it, ‘I don’t know anyone who’s enjoyed life more.’

You can see a film of this bad ass lady below.

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Much thanks to the following:

Sources:

CNN

Wikipedia

milliyet.com

Reference:

See a film on Ms Moth here.