Hamill was born on 2 November 1936 at 2 Gresham Terrace,
Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland, and was raised in Egypt, where his parents were
Presbyterian missionaries. He attended
Exeter School in
Devon, England. He served as a commissioned officer in the
Devonshire Regiment of the
British Army and the
Kings African Rifles in
Kenya for three years, then became a
journalist and war reporter in many trouble spots and conflicts. Together with his sound recordist and cameraman he was kidnapped by armed men in
Lebanon during the civil war in 1982 and was questioned for several hours before his release was negotiated by ITN. During the late 1980s he was often seen reporting nightly on long-running court cases from outside the Old Bailey during
News at Ten. He was the author of a novel,
Bitter Orange, about families split by conflict in
Northern Ireland, and a history of the British Army's involvement there. Hamill died on 9 April 2013 in Africa. ==Award==