A journalism training centre is on the lookout for a seasoned war reporter to teach one of its courses after the tutor who was lined up for the job got called away to Afghanistan.

London-based noSWeat journalism training was set to run the course next week as part of its "no-frills special courses" which also includes satirical journalism, rock music journalism and how to lobby parliament.

The courses are taken by specialised writers including regular Private Eye contributor Vitali Vitaliev on satirical journalism and Evening Standard leader writer Victor Sebestyen on writing opinion pieces and lobbying parliament.

But its tutor for the course "reporting war and its aftermath", Gillian Sandford - who reported the downfall of Milosevic for The Guardian and The Observer - leaves for Afghanistan later this month to help rebuild that war-torn land.

Course director Stephen Ward, said: "We have an experienced foreign correspondent lined up to take Gillian's place but she does not feel she has enough knowledge of war reporting at this stage.

"We would be very interested to hear from anyone who has reported from war zones for print or television or radio who feels they can pass on their specialised knowledge and techniques to our students.

"We have had an enormous amount of interest in this course."

Gillian will be teaching journalism in Afghanistan as part of the effort to rebuild the country in the aftermath of the recent bitter conflict.

She hopes to return to London in May to take up the course at noSWeat.

In the meantime anyone interested and appropriately qualified should call the Islington-based centre on 020 7713 1000 or e-mail Stephen on steve@nosweatjt.co.uk.

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