THERE'S a bad taste to biting bullets, but irony makes the swallow sweeter. It has Herefordshire author Tony Geraghty training journalists to serve emerging democracies, while back in Britain he faced prosecution for protecting press freedom.

Whitehall took aim at Tony over his most recent book The Irish War, targeted for detailing covert military intelligence operations across Ulster. The Ministry of Defence instigated charges under the Official Secrets Act that were eventually dropped in January 2000.

Tony's stand met with international acclaim and a prestigious press freedom award; the case against him condemned in a devastating United Nations report on human rights in the UK.

A chilling insight, then, into shots that a self-styled bastion of democracy was willing to take at messengers.

Or in Tony's words just the sort of 'heavy-handed, bone-headed' censorship familiar to those journalists he has trained in Ukraine, Africa and The Balkans. They've been biting bullets for years - without the irony.

Tony, from Hope-under-Dinmore, is a consultant to the Thomson Foundation, which instructs media around the world.

The work puts him in places where points are made by rocket-propelled grenade, where armoured personnel carriers deliver Letters to the Editor, even, as with his most recent assignment, where reporters can carry firearms for protection.

Tony was no stranger to such mean arenas during his own time as reporter, notably on The Sunday Times. But it's The Hereford Times he takes with him now.

In Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and lately the Ukraine, the county newspaper has been held up as an example of 'straight forward, sane' reporting reflecting the region served and relationship with readers - principles established in the workshops on political coverage Tony ran in advance of the upcoming Ukrainian election.

So it is that student journalists serving Donets'k, an industrial city still with its statue of Lenin in the main square, can outline issues affecting the Hereford and Leominster constituencies when Britain went to the polls in June last year.

They heard of the Hereford bypass debate too, and the county's fight back from foot and mouth, the kind of coverage taken for granted here, yet still subject to the stirrings of journalistic conscience there.

As in all of the former Soviet bloc, the state shackled Ukraine's media to ideology enforced by intimidation and self-censorship. Anything outside official edict was exchanged 'in the kitchen' says Tony - citing the Ukrainian phrase for news passed as clandestine communication.

He's equally fond of a similar term he took away from Rwanda, which, when translated from its French form refers to 'pavement radio'.

That was what Tony wanted his charges tuned into; together they hit the streets conducting questionnaires, engaging with a populace only too ready to exert opinion - because someone was willing to listen.

Students told Tony they had never met anyone who thought like he did. He'd always assumed such thinking as fundamental.

But wherever Tony tells of his treatment by the MoD, an 'eerie' feeling of camaraderie emerges; camaraderie and a sense of shame that the press freedoms restricted by their respective regimes for so long should be flouted by Britain.

Liz Griffin, editor of The Hereford Times said: "Although we face nothing like the restrictions imposed on many of our colleagues overseas, press freedom here cannot be taken for granted and requires constant vigilance."

A point for Tony to ponder in preparing to resume his battles with the British establishment; he's been called to testify at the 'Bloody Sunday' inquiry.

Having reported on the events now under examination in Derry, he fully expects his testimony to attract another volley of state-sanctioned acrimony.

l A special 'briefing' strengthened the county connection to Tony's work in the Ukraine. Before leaving he met with local Baptists to hear of their experiences aiding children's charities there. Tellingly, the £25 donation he made in return would, said his hosts, feed more than 100 of the youngsters they help care for.