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Tonight's Imagine presents an intimate portrait
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of the great British war photographer and photojournalist
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Don McCullin.
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In his early 20s, and with no formal training,
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McCullin began his career here in Finsbury Park,
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photographing the violent teenage gangs ruling the roost in the 1950s.
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He would go on to capture history as it was being made,
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bearing witness to the bloodiest conflicts of the last 50 years.
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Despite announcing his retirement from the warzone ten years ago,
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after returning from Iraq,
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McCullin decided to make a trip to Syria late last year.
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He wanted to show the human side of the ongoing conflict in Aleppo,
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where, not for the first time in his career, he came under sniper fire.
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A self-confessed war junkie,
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Don McCullin's quest to bring the ugly truths of the war
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to international attention would come at great personal cost.
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Jacqui and David Morris's often graphic film
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lays bare the addiction to danger, and the commitment to justice,
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that lie at the heart of this extraordinary life.
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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
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War is partly madness, mostly insanity,
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and the rest of it is schizophrenia.
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You do ask yourself, "Why am I here? What's my purpose?
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"What's this got to do with photography?"
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And it goes on and on, the questioning.
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You're trying to stay alive, you're trying to take pictures,
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you're trying to justify your presence there.
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And you think, "What good is this going to do anyway?
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"These people have already been killed."
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There were many battles within my own mind,
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before I got to these major conflicts.
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And when I got there, I was even more confused.
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I try to stay calm.
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I try not to indulge myself in this picture-taking.
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It was something I was meant to do, but how far was I allowed to take it?
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There was a lot of hypocrisy spinning around
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inside my own mind at the time.
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I didn't really think, um, it was right to be there,
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because I sometimes felt that
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the people who were doing these terrible things
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thought, you know, that I was OK-ing it,
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which I certainly wasn't.
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The first execution I ever saw in my life
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was a dawn execution of a bomber who had killed a load of people
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in the Saigon market a few weeks before.
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And there were all these photographers and journalists,
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they were all on this Jeep, you couldn't get another man on,
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and there was nowhere I could see. But I saw the event.
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They brought the man, in a Volkswagen truck.
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He got out and screamed anti-Americans.
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The firing squad shot him.
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A man stepped forward, grabbed a turf of his hair,
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and shot him through the brains.
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And I stood there with my mouth wide open.
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And I heard a man saying,
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"God, that was great stuff, did you get it, did you get it?"
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And I have never forgotten, to this day, and that was in 1965,
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and I didn't get it.
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And I never said anything about this situation
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to the people in the Sunday Times, because they would have thought
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I must have been a rank amateur not to have got such a picture.
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But, looking back,
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did I have the right to take that man's picture of his murder?
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Because, in a way, public executions are nothing less than murder.
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And I didn't get the picture.
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MUSIC AND APPLAUSE
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You came from a fairly rough background, didn't you, in London?
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It seems an unlikely ambition to have, your first ambition,
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to be a painter. Was that regarded as a bit sissy?
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Well, yes, it was, because where I live,
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you were expected to take on anybody.
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You'd never back down from an argument.
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I used to get some terrible hidings when I was a boy.
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But my father, when he was alive,
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he used to let me draw on the kitchen wall.
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And I'd actually stick pieces of paper on the wall,
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but I went over the edge, so there was always
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empty pictures with marvellous edges.
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RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER
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I lived in a house that was a tenement house,
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so we could knock huge nails in the walls and stick things on the walls.
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I wouldn't let my kids do it now but...
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My art career didn't last very long,
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because I got a junior art scholarship,
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and my father died and I had to go to work.
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MUSIC: "Move It" by Cliff Richard
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# Come on, pretty baby, let's move it and a-groove it
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# Well, shake, oh, baby, shake, oh, honey, please don't lose it
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# It's rhythm that gets into your heart and soul
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# Well, let me tell you, baby, it's called rock'n'roll. #
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I took a set of pictures of the boys I grew up with.
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They were involved in the killing of a policeman.
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They didn't actually kill the policeman,
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the rival gang that came from Islington,
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they were responsible for that killing.
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So, I took the photos to the Observer.
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They asked me to do more. I did more.
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They published the photos.
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They gave me the princely sum of £50.
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In those days, £50 from where I came from was like five weeks' wages.
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And then, I was, I suppose you could say, I was on the road to photography
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which has been a lifelong love affair.
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It has been really an amazing experience for me.
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Because you've got to remember, I don't have any education,
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I couldn't read properly.
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I came from a violent background where people were mostly interested
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in how well you could fight or steal, or do harm to society.
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So, quite honestly, having this amazing door opening, someone saying,
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"There's your freedom from ignorance and bigotry and violence."
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It was amazing I managed to escape from Finsbury Park.
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I've often wondered, how did he get that first memorable,
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urban landscape of the lads, the gang,
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The Guv'nors, as they were called in East London,
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standing in a derelict house?
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Perfectly framed by the building,
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and seeing right through the building.
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It was so emblematic of gang warfare and the roughness of London.
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And here we have a picture which is almost beautiful in its composition.
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You could say, there is no beauty in what this gang was up to.
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But he related, he had a sensitivity.
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An empathy is something you can't fake.
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This is the bloke I gave a good hiding to.
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HE LAUGHS
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He tried to hit me with a brick.
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We had all been to a funeral.
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One of the little girls had committed suicide,
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put her head in a gas oven over some bloke I grew up with.
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We came back from the funeral, and he ran past my car
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and snapped the wing mirror off.
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And he was peeing in this alleyway,
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that's when I should really have laid into him, while he was peeing,
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because it's difficult to fight back if you're in a situation like that.
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Then he picked a brick up, came roaring at me.
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Then I managed to get hold of it and reverse the charges.
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Wasn't I lucky to have grown up in a period of the '60s, '70s, the '80s,
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when it was all happening?
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It was as if, like it was carved out for me, really.
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I did grasp the nettle,
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I didn't just look at it and think, "God, I wish I was there."
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I used to say, "I'm going to go there." And I did.
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- NEWSREEL:
- Paris in the spring of 1961,
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and the time of President Kennedy's visit, was as beautiful as ever.
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I was in Paris with my wife, my new wife really,
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we'd only been married a few weeks.
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And I was like a fish out of water really,
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because I couldn't speak the language.
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And whilst we were in Paris, I saw somebody reading a newspaper.
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It was a photograph of an East German soldier
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jumping over some barbed wire, which was only, at that stage,
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separating them from the West.
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Of course, the story had been building up,
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potentially been building up.
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I looked at this photograph, it was a memorable picture.
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And I said to her, "When we get back to England,"
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knowing I only had £70 in my savings account,
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"would you mind if I went to Berlin?"
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And she said, "Of course I don't mind."
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- NEWSREEL:
- The East Germans don't seem to have girders enough
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to plug every hole.
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When a soldier's attention is diverted by others,
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a hole is cut in the barbed wire,
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and Khrushchev's face is slapped again.
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I rang the Observer newspaper, and they said,
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"We're not interested in you going."
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And I said, "Well, I bought the ticket." There was no commission.
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So, I got near to a place called Friedrichstrasse,
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which was the centre of all the problem.
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The Americans were facing the Russians.
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There were tanks facing each other.
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At that stage, in Friedrichstrasse,
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they were actually building the beginnings of the Berlin Wall.
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This was really the right place to be.
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- NEWSREEL:
- Camera crews are harassed by reflecting mirrors
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held by East German police.
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Water hoses are played on equipment.
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Nevertheless, our reporters are able to come up with remarkable pictures,
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despite these hazards.
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My camera equipment wasn't very good, actually.
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I had a camera I had bought during my time in the air force.
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It was totally the wrong shape
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to give me the kind of pictures that I needed.
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But, nevertheless, I stretched the use of this camera, kneeling down
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and holding it up high and doing all kinds of funny things with it.
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By the time that I'd been there a few days,
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that wall went up pretty fast. And people could not escape.
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And I looked at East German soldiers
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leaning out of buildings on the other side of the wall, with binoculars.
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And looking right at me. And I thought,
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"They can't hurt me, because they're over there and I'm here."
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It was very exciting, it was at the heightened part of the Cold War
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where the Russians were quite prepared
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to make a stand against the West, and vice versa.
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What it really comes down to is that I was sitting on top of
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the most important news story in the world.
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And it was my decision,
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this intuition that took me there in the first place.
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So, I was beginning to show signs of having a brain
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that was functioning in the right direction.
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I came back to England with the film
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and got it processed in the Observer's darkroom.
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And they saw the pictures and they ran half a page of my story.
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The story was then entered into the news category
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for the News Pictures of the Year. And I won this award.
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And the Observer gave me a contract after that.
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So, I started getting better jobs at the Observer.
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I started going to all kinds of political rallies and things.
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I would go to the East End of London
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and photograph disturbances with Oswald Mosley, situations like that.
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It was a developing and an expanding situation
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for the early part of my career.
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- NEWSREEL:
- The tinderbox that is Cyprus threatens to erupt
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into a full-scale war.
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Greek students demonstrate against British and US proposals
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that a force of NATO troops help maintain a truce on the island
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until differences between Greeks and Turks can be resolved.
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I walked into the Observer office one day, and the editor said to me,
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"How would you consider covering the civil war for us in Cyprus?"
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And at that point in my life, I wasn't ready.
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And I felt that, when I think about those words, I think,
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I must have been levitating. I felt as if I was rising off the ground.
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I knew that the second door was opening.
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- NEWSREEL:
- The terror of civil war struck Cyprus in December.
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On Boxing Day, the British came in to stop the bloodshed.
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So, I thought, I'm going to do my best here.
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And I'm going to make an impression. This is my big chance.
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So, I went to the Turkish community.
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And they were surrounded by the Greeks.
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I managed to slip past the roadblocks and get in.
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I could hear gunfire.
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That was the first time I had heard, in my life, hostile gunfire.
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And then, suddenly, out of the cinema burst a man with a machine gun,
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and he had a raincoat on and a flat hat.
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And he looked like something like a Sicilian Mafioso bandit.
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And then people ran out with mattresses on their heads,
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women and children, as if a mattress would stop a bullet.
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And this was my baptism of war.
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I had to assess very quickly what was going on,
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where the fire was coming from.
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As the day wore on, we were trapped in these empty streets.
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There were groups of fighters, Turkish defenders.
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And funny, curious things caught my eye.
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I could remember a group of men behind barricades.
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It was almost like the Spanish Civil War, really.
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And by the barricade, there were men with an ill-assorted bunch of weapons
245
00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:29,240
and old, almost muskety-looking kind of museum pieces.
246
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:35,040
But standing near this group of men was a beautiful dog.
247
00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:44,920
I thought, "Why is it that these things come to you,
248
00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:47,960
"when you should be thinking about more serious things?"
249
00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:52,680
But to be truthful, these little things sometimes tell you
250
00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:57,520
much more about a story than the obvious things.
251
00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:01,040
So, I think what I'm getting down to here is,
252
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:02,920
we're talking about sensitivity.
253
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:09,720
What I had to realise at the time, I was learning a new trade.
254
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:14,960
I was learning about the price of humanity and its sufferings.
255
00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:22,320
- NEWSREEL:
- Now, four months later, the armed forces of both sides
256
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,000
are still defying the UN's attempts to keep the peace.
257
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:30,240
And the Cyprus situation is as dangerous and complex as ever.
258
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:32,320
The UN is powerless to do anything
259
00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:35,680
that would really help restore law and order.
260
00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:42,440
I saw a whole village trying to evacuate, they were being attacked,
261
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:46,560
to somewhere with more safety, like a school building.
262
00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:50,800
And there was this one old lady, who was lame, and she had two sticks.
263
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,480
And she really couldn't get those legs moving.
264
00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:56,040
And there was a British soldier trying to coax her along,
265
00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:59,960
persuade her to hurry up before she'd probably lose her life.
266
00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:02,680
And I was with a friend of mine, I said, "This is ridiculous."
267
00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:04,960
I took one picture of the soldier and the old lady,
268
00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:06,080
and I put my cameras down.
269
00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:09,000
And I scooped this old lady up in my arms.
270
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,560
It was like scooping up some rag doll that had fallen from a child's pram.
271
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:16,080
I just ran and ran with her. I don't know why I did it.
272
00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,960
But I didn't really want to see that old lady shot down and killed.
273
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:24,520
And I went back to my position as a photographer, and I carried on.
274
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,240
But it made me feel good.
275
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:29,880
I it made me feel as if I wasn't just there as a voyeur
276
00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:34,840
that was enjoying other people's misery and possible deaths.
277
00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:37,360
It's a very fine line.
278
00:17:37,360 --> 00:17:41,280
I've been constantly accused of taking terrible pictures
279
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:43,680
and people saying, "Did you ever help anyone?"
280
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:47,640
Of course I did. But I don't want to brag about it.
281
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:50,880
I did it sometimes to clear my own conscience.
282
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,920
These little battles were erupting all over
283
00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:13,160
the northern part of the island of Cyprus, where the Turks lived.
284
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,720
We saw this soldier looking at the bodies, and I said,
285
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:19,520
"What's happening?" He said, "There's been some killing," he said,
286
00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:24,200
"There's a dead body up there and some more in that house."
287
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:28,160
I knocked on the door, I tapped on this door and there was no answer.
288
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,040
And I let myself in.
289
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:36,600
And the first thing I was greeted with was warm blood.
290
00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:42,280
These men had been murdered the day before,
291
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:45,160
and the warm, early morning sunlight had penetrated through
292
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,600
the glass door of this house.
293
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,640
And I closed the door and I tiptoed around the room,
294
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:54,080
and I got myself in a corner, and I was taking the first shot.
295
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:57,840
And suddenly, the door opened and, to my horror, the whole family burst in.
296
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:05,280
I thought, my God, they're going to be really cross, finding me in here.
297
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:10,520
To my astonishment, they weren't, so I carried on photographing.
298
00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:14,040
And there was a woman who started screaming like mad.
299
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,640
And the truth was that it was her husband who was just below my feet,
300
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,640
who was dead. A new husband at that, they had only been married a week.
301
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:25,920
And the Greeks came the day before and attacked this community
302
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,000
and murdered these people in cold blood in this house.
303
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:40,320
I'd go into a village one day, and I got there in the early morning.
304
00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:42,920
And they were finding bodies of Turkish men
305
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:44,440
who were defending the villages.
306
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:46,480
And then they were coming back to the village
307
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:48,840
and telling women that their husbands had been killed.
308
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,360
And then you saw these Goya-esque kind of poses
309
00:19:52,360 --> 00:19:55,120
of people looking up to Christ.
310
00:19:55,120 --> 00:19:57,560
I've noticed that a lot in wars.
311
00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:01,800
When people are in deep grief and emotion, they look up
312
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,880
as if they can see God himself there, offering them some help.
313
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,960
And you see that in Goya's drawings.
314
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:11,280
Before men are being shot or massacred,
315
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,200
they look up, or they are praying,
316
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:17,640
and it's part of that religious nature of the great painters.
317
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,280
That moment is so classic.
318
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,680
I call it one of the decisive moments in photography.
319
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:30,080
Because it combines the news moments with the compositional elements
320
00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:32,360
which make a photograph in themselves.
321
00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:37,360
So, there is something, a second or two would have made a difference.
322
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,040
I asked Don how he took the picture.
323
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:46,200
As I recall it, he actually had to fall to his knees quickly to get it
324
00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:48,760
because he just sensed it was coming.
325
00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:59,800
I mean, OK, I talk as if there's a lot of poetry in me.
326
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:03,640
There isn't. I'm a photographer. I am neither an artist or a poet.
327
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:05,960
I'm a photographer.
328
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,720
And one of the things I've learned most of all, erm,
329
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,200
over and above photography,
330
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:17,840
the very best qualifications you can have when you are in this situation,
331
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:21,720
and you are exercising this duty as a photographer, or whatever, reporter,
332
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:27,320
is that it's much better to be on the side of humanity.
333
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:33,640
All this was coming at me so fast, this responsibility.
334
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:37,120
And I felt, almost from the word go, I got a grip of it,
335
00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:40,160
and I thought, I understand what I'm doing for the first time.
336
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:41,840
I'm meant to be doing this.
337
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,240
There was a decree put out that journalists were not allowed
338
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:38,800
to leave Leopoldville.
339
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,640
And then I thought, here I am, all this way out here in the Congo
340
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,720
and now I can't even leave out of the capital.
341
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:47,200
So, I had it in mind, and I knew that there were mercenaries
342
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,200
operating up in a place called Stanleyville.
343
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:51,000
I quickly managed to discover all this.
344
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,920
I've been appointed by Mr Tchombe
345
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,400
to recruit a number, which I can't disclose,
346
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,680
of men to form a fighting unit in the Congo,
347
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:00,280
to dispel the present rebellion.
348
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,120
"Mercenary" is a dirty word.
349
00:23:02,120 --> 00:23:04,920
This unit is going to change the meaning of that word,
350
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,080
and "mercenary" will now be a badge of honour,
351
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:11,800
rather than a dirty word in the English language.
352
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,280
I met one of these mercenaries, and his name was Alan Murphy.
353
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:18,240
And I said, "Could you get me some information about this?"
354
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:20,600
And I pumped him for how to get there.
355
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,240
And he said, what happens was, every morning,
356
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,800
a C130 American plane, under the CIA,
357
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:31,760
would take groups of mercenaries to Stanleyville.
358
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,760
And I said, "Could you get me one of your shirts and a pair of trousers,
359
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:36,680
"and if I sleep overnight in the hotel,
360
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:39,920
"would you kick my bed in the morning when you get the call to leave?"
361
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,360
And he did just that.
362
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:47,320
And I see myself now, many, 40 years ago, standing on that runway
363
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,640
with the early-morning rain shower that had passed.
364
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,720
And a man with a clipboard, who happened to be a CIA man,
365
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:58,880
asking people's names. And I thought, I've had it. I've had it, you know.
366
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,480
Then he came up to me and he said, "What's your name?"
367
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,480
And I said, "McCullin." He said, "You're not on the list."
368
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,600
I said, "I should be," and my legs were like jelly.
369
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,880
And he said, he wrote my name down, he said, "OK, climb aboard."
370
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,720
And I'd cracked this amazing no-go situation.
371
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,360
When I arrived in Stanleyville,
372
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:10,800
I could hear a lot of shouting and screaming,
373
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,160
people crying and gunfire.
374
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:18,760
And I saw gangs of boys who had been tied up, and they were being beaten
375
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,280
and shot in the back of the head and kicked into the river.
376
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:22,720
I was looking at all this.
377
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,160
I had my little camera in my bag, and 20 rolls of film.
378
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,040
And I thought, how am I going to bring my camera out now
379
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,000
and declare that I shouldn't be here and I'm not a mercenary?
380
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,960
Because it was a huge gamble.
381
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:44,360
And it was the Congolese gendarmerie who were killing these people,
382
00:25:44,360 --> 00:25:47,760
torturing them, dragging them behind trucks on wires,
383
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:49,360
it was really terrible.
384
00:25:49,360 --> 00:25:51,480
They were skinned alive, some of them.
385
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,640
It was a kind of wood yard, and they were sitting in a corner, shivering.
386
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,520
Knowing that any moment, they would be shot.
387
00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:09,160
And then they dragged some of these boys out in front of me
388
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:11,640
and started brutalising them.
389
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:15,640
And I had no power, by the way, to prevent this.
390
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,160
I took a few pictures and I walked away.
391
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:25,360
I thought, you know, you have a moral sense of purpose and duty.
392
00:26:25,360 --> 00:26:30,320
You have to work out which of those purposes and duty you are there for.
393
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,520
It's very difficult too.
394
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:36,720
You want to take this picture, and you want to stop it.
395
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,120
And it's a very difficult thing.
396
00:26:39,120 --> 00:26:41,040
It came up more and more my life,
397
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,240
seeing people executed in front of me.
398
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,080
GUNFIRE
399
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,400
RAPID GUNFIRE
400
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,080
There was a man called Mike Hoare
401
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,880
who was battling on the other side of this river, the Lualaba.
402
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,200
He was in charge of Fifth Commando,
403
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:12,640
these mercenaries I had teamed up with.
404
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,320
So, I arrived on the other side.
405
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,880
And then, Mike Hoare came to me and said,
406
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,000
"What are you doing, who are you? Where have you come from?"
407
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,200
And I said, "I have to be clean with you now,
408
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,520
"I'm working for the Observer newspaper."
409
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,680
He wouldn't have understood the German magazine, Quick.
410
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:34,960
I immediately fell back on my English heritage.
411
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,960
So, he said, "I'll deal with you in the morning,
412
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,880
"I'm going to hand you over to the Congolese military."
413
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:44,480
Which one knew right away, that would be curtains.
414
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,560
He said, "I admire what you have done, but I don't condone it."
415
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,760
And then he totally switched his whole kind of attitude
416
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,440
and offered to take me on this journey
417
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,360
chasing these Simbas who had abducted these nuns.
418
00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:04,040
And they were cutting them to pieces with machetes on the way down,
419
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:05,680
as they were fleeing from us.
420
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,480
And we caught up with them.
421
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,240
There was goodness in Mike Hoare,
422
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:28,480
but there wasn't much goodness in what he stood for, really.
423
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,200
He was there for the adventure and the money.
424
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,120
There was one mercenary Rhodesian and I was sleeping in the same room
425
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,440
and he had a whole box of stuff and I said, "Where did you get that?"
426
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:54,240
He said, "I've just blown the bank in town but there was no money in it, unfortunately."
427
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:00,840
Halfway through the night, I heard gunfire
428
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:02,480
and I woke up in a great sweat.
429
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,480
This Rhodesian had got drunk and shot these two African boys,
430
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,720
who were doing all the laundry and the cooking
431
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:10,960
for these mercenaries for breakfast.
432
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,280
I remember looking at one of these poor black boys,
433
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,480
he was about 12 years old and his eyes were open.
434
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,960
And I looked at the mercenary and he said, "They asked for it.
435
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,640
"I found a weapon on them." Which wasn't true.
436
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,040
You know, some of these mercenaries,
437
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,360
they just had a lust for killing Africans.
438
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,920
HE MOANS
439
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,560
I hated them in the end.
440
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:37,560
GUNSHOT/HE SHOUTS
441
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,160
When I came away from these atrocities, I kept thinking,
442
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,400
"How am I going to get through this?"
443
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,520
I love what I'm doing, I love photography but, you know,
444
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:54,640
this other stuff is really too awful to live with, you know.
445
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,520
And sometimes people used to say to me, "Do you have nightmares?"
446
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,400
I would say, "No.
447
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,400
"Only in the daytime, when my eyes are open and I'm awake
448
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,800
"and my memory is, you know, on full alert."
449
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:11,440
So when I see... I love photography,
450
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,640
I love being in my darkroom, but even my darkroom is a haunted place.
451
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,360
I go in there with the red light and it's like being in a womb
452
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:23,960
and I play that music, which is only classical music,
453
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,000
it somehow pleases me, but at the same moment,
454
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,360
it takes me down and down and down to where I don't want to go.
455
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:34,040
It's like as if I'm drowning in a very deep ocean...
456
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,800
..and I'm trying to get back to the top again to see the daylight.
457
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,400
So, you know, I don't just take photographs. I think.
458
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,440
CLASSICAL MUSIC
459
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:12,840
I would come back to Finsbury Park,
460
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:14,840
because unfortunately,
461
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,640
I was still living in quite poor circumstances with my new wife.
462
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:22,240
And then, when there were odd days when I had nothing to do,
463
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:26,640
I would go to the Wimpy bar and hang out with the same tribe, you know.
464
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,280
And then they would say, "Where have you been lately?"
465
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,320
I'd say, "I've been to the Congo with the mercenaries."
466
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,840
And they would try to humour me...
467
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,920
..but basically, they were almost putting me down,
468
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,960
as if I was living in a Walter Mitty world.
469
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,600
I did about four and a half years on the Observer
470
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:55,640
and things were beginning to slow down for me and I could also...
471
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,360
I started getting the taste and the need
472
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,600
to do much bigger, you know, international stories.
473
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,280
And a friend of mine called David King,
474
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,000
who worked at the Sunday Times, said to me,
475
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:12,720
"Why don't you come and join us?
476
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,720
"Why don't you come and do some work for us? I'll give you work."
477
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,720
So I did and he sent me off to the Mississippi.
478
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:20,760
BLUES MUSIC
479
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:35,000
It was an amazing part of the world, the Mississippi.
480
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,120
They had the sharecroppers,
481
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,520
the black people who brought in the cotton,
482
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:44,240
living in shacks and sheds, and then you had New Orleans,
483
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:50,840
where we basically, we arrived in New Orleans and it was amazing to see.
484
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,040
And there was a Ku Klux Klan rally one night.
485
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,360
It was like Hollywood.
486
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:12,400
There was the big fire cross burning,
487
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,640
these rather hateful people in these ridiculous kind of outfits,
488
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,640
smoking huge cigars and basically
489
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:24,000
saying, "Welcome," but, you know, at the same time intimidating us.
490
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,480
I managed to, you know, get a few pictures, which David King,
491
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,720
when I came back, put together.
492
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,360
You know, you can take amazing pictures,
493
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,640
but you still need to have them presented
494
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,800
in a way that the public can accept them and understand them.
495
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,920
That was my first assignment for the Sunday Times.
496
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,720
Roy Thompson was not a journalist himself,
497
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,200
but he was the best friend journalism ever had.
498
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,120
He was very proud of his newspapers
499
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,720
and he was so proud of their independence,
500
00:34:14,720 --> 00:34:18,960
he had a card printed which he carried in his pocket.
501
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,000
So when Roy Thompson was attacked,
502
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,880
"Why are you papers publishing this?"
503
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,960
or, "Why are you putting these war photographs in the colour magazine?
504
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,400
"We advertisers don't like it."
505
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,880
He would pause and take out of his pocket a little card
506
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,720
and it said, it was a kind of oath he'd made, you know,
507
00:34:35,720 --> 00:34:40,440
"The newspapers that I control will always be independent
508
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:44,240
"and will run professionally and I do not interfere in them."
509
00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:47,240
So he would put the card back in his pocket and would say,
510
00:34:47,240 --> 00:34:51,280
"You wouldn't expect me to go against my own word, would you?"
511
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,840
I was very privileged because I worked on the colour magazine,
512
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:59,760
which was directly associated with the Sunday Times newspaper.
513
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,800
And I had equally wonderful people there
514
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:07,360
who allowed me to just disappear and come back several weeks later
515
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,640
and on top of all that, allow me to edit my own material.
516
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,800
He knew he had the confidence that if he did his part
517
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:18,640
and took his photographs and reported with integrity
518
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,880
and accuracy and with a sense of composition,
519
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,840
that it wasn't going to be interfered with
520
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,880
or rejected because of some other concerns.
521
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:32,400
He trusted me and so it meant that I would try that much harder
522
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,960
for people who gave me this wonderful freedom.
523
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,600
So Roy Thomson, backing his editors,
524
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,240
was crucial to the career of Don McCullin.
525
00:35:41,240 --> 00:35:43,520
MUSIC: "Tin Soldier" by The Small Faces
526
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:00,880
The '60s were packed with opportunities
527
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,880
if you wanted to go to war.
528
00:36:06,720 --> 00:36:12,200
# I am a little tin soldier that wants to jump into your fire... #
529
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,320
Israeli soldiers, fresh from street fighting,
530
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,240
snapped one another at the Wailing Wall.
531
00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:24,000
Pictures for girlfriends, or people from Tel Aviv.
532
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,240
# All I need is treat me like a man
533
00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:31,880
# Cos I ain't no child... #
534
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:33,920
If they think that I've come back happy,
535
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,400
they know that I've got something ghastly to show.
536
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,600
And if I've got something ghastly to show,
537
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,640
it means that I'm trying to get the message over to people
538
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,040
that even though I like being in a war and I like being there
539
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,400
because it's a great adventure for me,
540
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,720
my duty is to be there for a reason, not just to have a bloody good time.
541
00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:56,560
I covered the battle of the citadel of Hue,
542
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:58,560
which was the biggest battle I'd ever been in.
543
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:01,440
I mean, I wouldn't like to go through a year without being in a war.
544
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:03,560
And it went on for two weeks
545
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:08,080
and that was really the beginning of real madness.
546
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,160
I'm getting a bit bad, really,
547
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,720
because I'm looking forward to doing two wars a year
548
00:37:13,720 --> 00:37:16,840
and if I start looking forward to doing two or even more a year,
549
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:18,880
I'm not going to survive.
550
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,600
CLASSICAL MUSIC
551
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:27,920
GUNFIRE
552
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:04,200
Sleeping next to dead bodies.
553
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,880
Looking at men who had been run over by tanks
554
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,440
and looked like Persian carpets in the road.
555
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,560
People with their brains hanging out.
556
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,120
Living under tables and sleeping in rat-infested rooms.
557
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:23,680
It was like, basically, going into total madness and insanity.
558
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,120
I stood for two weeks in that battle,
559
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:31,080
watching dozens and dozens of American soldiers being killed
560
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,240
and wounded and being dragged towards me.
561
00:38:33,240 --> 00:38:37,160
They looked as if they'd been taken from a butcher's shop, with blood everywhere.
562
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,120
In the end, I became totally mad, free,
563
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,720
running around like a tormented animal.
564
00:38:43,720 --> 00:38:45,680
CLASSICAL MUSIC
565
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,680
I've got to make sure that when they look at my pictures,
566
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,000
if it's on a Sunday morning after breakfast,
567
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,040
that it's going to hit them hard.
568
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,760
The very first man I saw in that Battle of Hue
569
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,720
had been hit in the face with two bullets.
570
00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:19,760
And he had a bandage around him.
571
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:24,320
It looked like a child who had his porridge dripping down his face,
572
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,760
through this bandage, but in fact it was blood and not porridge.
573
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:32,600
Big, gooey chunks of human gore, just coming out of his face.
574
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,600
I put my camera up to my face
575
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,080
and he tried to move his head, this soldier,
576
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,440
but his eyes were screaming at me not to photograph him,
577
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,520
so I took my camera and went somewhere else.
578
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,800
There was no shortage of, you know, human flesh to photograph that day.
579
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,720
Our most vivid memory of the battle
580
00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:02,840
was that it was one of the most intense battles of the Vietnam War.
581
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:09,080
Don came in and joined us and he just kind of showed up,
582
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:14,400
but what was unique about Don is that the other correspondents
583
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:19,080
and photographers would show up and, what I would say, snap and go.
584
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,320
They would take their pictures and then be out of there.
585
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,160
Don, for whatever the reason, decided to join with us,
586
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:31,080
stay with us and for several days, he became one of us.
587
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,880
On one occasion, on more than one occasion,
588
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,600
went out at great risk to himself
589
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:43,640
to assist with bringing some of our wounded casualties back
590
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:45,680
to where we could evacuate them.
591
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,680
His classic photo of the shell-shocked Marine
592
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:55,480
is a Delta Company Marine.
593
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,480
I dropped on my knees and photographed this man.
594
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:03,720
I shot five frames, each one singularly.
595
00:41:03,720 --> 00:41:06,200
One, two, three, four, five.
596
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,320
There is not one blink of an eyelid. There's not one change.
597
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:14,320
All those negatives are exactly the same.
598
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,880
I have kept up with a sizeable number
599
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:20,920
of the Marines from Delta Company.
600
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:26,720
We get together periodically and that individual has not surfaced,
601
00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:30,520
so I don't know his history from that day on.
602
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,560
PIANO MUSIC
603
00:41:48,720 --> 00:41:50,760
DISTANT GUNFIRE
604
00:42:02,720 --> 00:42:04,760
I photographed this giant American
605
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:08,360
who looked like an athlete, but he was throwing a hand grenade.
606
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:12,680
Within seconds, this sniper hit this soldier in the hand
607
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,440
and he had a hand like a cauliflower.
608
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:17,720
It was all busted and bursting open.
609
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,160
The picture itself almost defeats the anti-war feeling
610
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,080
that I was trying to put across,
611
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:28,640
because he looks the picture of manhood,
612
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:30,880
like a javelin thrower at an Olympic event.
613
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:32,720
Instead of that,
614
00:42:32,720 --> 00:42:37,320
he was throwing a hand grenade which was meant to bring death to others.
615
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,400
DISTANT GUNFIRE
616
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,880
The one meaningful picture I took in that battle
617
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:03,280
was a man who had been hit in both legs, an American Marine.
618
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,440
He was being supported by two friends
619
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:10,560
and if ever I thought, at the very moment in my atheistic kind of mind,
620
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:14,560
that I was looking at something purely religious, was of this man,
621
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,120
who looked like Jesus Christ being taken down from the cross.
622
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:31,640
When it was over, about 50% of the Marines were casualties.
623
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:38,240
In my own case, I went in with a company of 120 Marines
624
00:43:38,240 --> 00:43:41,800
and sailors and at the end of the battle,
625
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,440
there were 39 of us that were still standing.
626
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:54,520
So you can see from just those shots how chaotic it was.
627
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:02,040
After two weeks, I got back to the press centre in Da Nang
628
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,480
and I realised I hadn't taken my clothes off, my underwear,
629
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:07,120
anything off for two weeks.
630
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,320
And, you know, I had a beard and I was haunted-looking.
631
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,480
I took those clothes off and threw them straight into the waste bin,
632
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,640
my underwear and everything I stood in, and had a shower.
633
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:24,160
I think I could have easily broke down in that shower and cried,
634
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,080
you know, I was so...
635
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:33,360
..so drained and used and crushed by two weeks of seeing people dying.
636
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:39,840
And you know, I think what I'm trying to say here is trying to be honest.
637
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,880
You know, photography suddenly didn't come into the picture, even.
638
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,320
It had nothing to do with photography.
639
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:52,240
After a while, if you are that involved in that kind of situation,
640
00:44:52,240 --> 00:44:55,400
it's not about photography, it's about humanity.
641
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,960
Still photographs do have this strong affinity
642
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,000
with the way we remember, so...
643
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:05,040
And the vibrations of a still photograph can be intense
644
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,160
and can last for ever.
645
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:12,440
I can remember that Don sometimes worries,
646
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:18,000
I know, about, "Have I taken these risks? Is it worthwhile?"
647
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,320
I can tell him it is
648
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:25,040
because nobody can trace...it's like throwing a stone in a pond.
649
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:27,480
The ripples go out and you can't say,
650
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,480
"This ripple was caused by this stone," but they are.
651
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:34,880
And I think the disenchantment with the Vietnam War in America
652
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,960
is powerfully reinforced by some of the photographers,
653
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:42,000
American photographers, including Don McCullin.
654
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:48,320
Photography is the truth if it is being handled by a truthful person
655
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,520
and I have to tell you that I have a lot of integrity.
656
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,480
I would never tell a lie.
657
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:57,120
I would never try to recreate something that wasn't real.
658
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:00,560
I did a picture once where I did recreate something.
659
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:03,120
It was the only time I ever did it,
660
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:07,440
but I saw some Americans looting the body of a dead soldier,
661
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:11,200
looking for souvenirs and mocking the body, mocking the person.
662
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:13,000
And when they went away,
663
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,640
having rifled all through his personal things,
664
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,480
I brought them together and made a kind of montage
665
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:22,240
of this pathetic possessions of this North Vietnamese soldier.
666
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,600
It's the only time I've ever done it,
667
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,920
but I thought I would make a statement for this soldier.
668
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:30,960
I have no shame about doing that.
669
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:36,240
I have this picture and I think it says what I was trying to make it say, that, you know,
670
00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:41,520
"Hear me. I am just a victim of war."
671
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,760
I was trying to say this about this young man.
672
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,920
We had total freedom in Vietnam.
673
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,840
That, of course, made the Americans feel,
674
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,480
when the war finally came to an end,
675
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,000
that it was the media that let them down.
676
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:06,000
They felt a bit upset about that, because they had given us
677
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,400
every facility and all they got in exchange was, you know,
678
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:14,080
that public opinion turned against the war in Vietnam.
679
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:20,840
So if you go to Afghanistan now, you are totally controlled.
680
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,720
They are never going to be allowed to take the kind of photographs
681
00:47:23,720 --> 00:47:29,240
I did in Vietnam of the real thing, the battle, the price of war
682
00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:36,120
and the suffering and loss, so the whole rulebook has been rewritten.
683
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,120
And it doesn't come out in our favour.
684
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,520
You just said it's a rotten job
685
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,400
and yet you have, in fact, sought it out.
686
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,520
You've sought out war and famine and misery
687
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:55,520
in all the time I've known you, which has been a long, long time.
688
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,160
Yes, I did it because I thought it was just going to be soldiers,
689
00:47:58,160 --> 00:47:59,600
and then when I got to war,
690
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:02,240
I thought it was amazingly exciting to lay under
691
00:48:02,240 --> 00:48:05,080
a barrage of shells dropping on me, or a sniper trying to get me.
692
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,680
I thought, you know, that was a challenge,
693
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,480
and I have swum around with many dead bodies in canals
694
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:13,920
to get by them when the sniper is working a ridge for me.
695
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:17,680
I felt I wanted to put my fingers up and say, "You missed it, mate."
696
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,600
And, you know, I had a very cocky attitude about warfare,
697
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:25,160
but then I started coming in contact with the real victims
698
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,840
and they are always the poor people who are not informed.
699
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,520
They don't have the Mercedes-Benz to get away.
700
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,720
They don't have the communication or the money to move off quick.
701
00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:37,080
They are always the very poorest people who get clobbered.
702
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:40,760
And the amazing thing is that is where I started in my life,
703
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,800
living with poor people,
704
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:45,240
and when I am with them in those circumstances,
705
00:48:45,240 --> 00:48:49,480
I have a very close affinity and understanding of what their lot is.
706
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,200
# I presume you never noticed
707
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:02,200
# How much I really cared... #
708
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,840
You are friends, aren't you?
709
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:07,360
- You are buddies, aren't you?
- Well, we're all buddies.
710
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:12,920
Can you look where my elbow is?
711
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:16,000
I want to see your face, if you don't mind. That's fine.
712
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:20,360
You're OK, aren't you? You don't mind? You don't mind me?
713
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:24,000
I'm not bullying you around, am I? OK, thanks.
714
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,360
I don't want to take liberties, you know.
715
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:37,800
I could have spent the rest of my life working
716
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,960
in Aldgate and Whitechapel, it's all there.
717
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,040
Photographically, it's all there.
718
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,920
It is a totally, what do they call it...
719
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:55,320
..Hogarthian kind of experience, when you are doing these pictures.
720
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,240
PIANO MUSIC
721
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,600
This is one of my favourite pictures and I've never,
722
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:12,480
ever printed it before.
723
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:14,720
Look at these men's hands.
724
00:50:14,720 --> 00:50:17,280
They are all standing up asleep, these men.
725
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:32,800
These people used to try and put the dead eye on you.
726
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:34,960
By that, they would try to stare you out.
727
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:38,400
You must never flinch away like that. You must stare them out.
728
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:43,760
This is a woman called Jean.
729
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:47,520
She used to hang out under the arches of Liverpool Street Station.
730
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:50,520
She used to curtsey when I went up.
731
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:52,520
She used to say, "Hello, Captain Mark."
732
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,400
I said, "Why do you keep calling me Captain Mark?"
733
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,400
And she said, "Because you look like Captain Mark Phillips."
734
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,440
She said, "Would you like some tea?"
735
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:02,560
And I said, "You haven't got any milk."
736
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,760
She said, "I can always get it outside of people's front doors."
737
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:08,120
I loved her.
738
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:10,920
In fact, what I did, I found her somewhere to live.
739
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:15,600
This is a picture I really like.
740
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,960
It's like a fallen woman from the turn of the century.
741
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:23,120
I did this in Chapel Market on Sunday morning when I was very young.
742
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,920
She's been a posh woman, this woman.
743
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:28,960
You can tell by the handbag, tell by the clothes.
744
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:36,320
They're all young, now. They are not old people like this.
745
00:51:42,240 --> 00:51:44,520
I think one of the best portraits I ever did
746
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:46,920
was this man in Spitalfields Market.
747
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,840
He was actually lying by the embers of an all-night fire
748
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,800
that these homeless men used to congregate around.
749
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,080
He sat up and looked at me full-face.
750
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:58,600
I just held his stare and I just brought my Nikon camera up
751
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,840
to my eye and took this picture and he never moved an eyelid.
752
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,600
I was looking at the bluest eyes you've ever seen
753
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:06,640
and his hair was matted.
754
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:10,480
I felt as if I was looking at one of those Neptune images
755
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:14,320
of a man under the sea, you know, with a trident.
756
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,560
It was quite extraordinary.
757
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,120
So pleased with the picture.
758
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,280
MUSIC: "Blue Peter Theme"
759
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:30,080
This year it's a matter of life and death.
760
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,120
GUNSHOT
761
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:35,440
There has been a war going on in West Africa for two years now.
762
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:38,920
It's a civil war between the Biafrans and the Nigerians.
763
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:43,480
We're not going to say which side is right or which side is wrong,
764
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,040
except that all war is always wrong.
765
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,200
I went two or three times.
766
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:17,320
Aeroplanes that used to take in aid
767
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:21,000
used to land on an extended road, which was their airstrip.
768
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,360
It was called Uli Airstrip and you went at night
769
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:26,720
and the Federal Government had hired,
770
00:53:26,720 --> 00:53:29,760
you know, Russian pilots and foreign pilots
771
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:31,760
to try and shoot these planes down.
772
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:34,320
This one is flying the other side of the mission church,
773
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:35,960
sweeping to the right.
774
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:38,080
Streaking the ground as they move,
775
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,760
dropping incendiary bombs and fragmentation bombs
776
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:42,880
in the places around here.
777
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:49,880
So, going in to Uli Airstrip at night was a very hairy experience.
778
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:54,120
There are crews out there willing to fly, despite the lack of permission
779
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:57,160
and we will just try and fly in.
780
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:00,920
- But you stand a good chance of being shot down?
- I don't think so, no.
781
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:05,240
They seem to have been fairly trigger-happy in the past, though.
782
00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:08,600
Anyway, we are going to try and let us see.
783
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,240
Ms Ryder, why are you going as well?
784
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:16,520
Well, because one feels very concerned, clearly,
785
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:20,120
with anyone who is suffering any distress anywhere
786
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:25,760
and partly because one has seen a situation in Europe,
787
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:29,640
in the past, perhaps similar to this.
788
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,120
PIANO MUSIC
789
00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:54,480
I walked into a camp which was actually an old school building
790
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:58,320
and there were 800 dying children, standing there, waiting for me.
791
00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:04,960
You know, when you go into a camp with 800 dying children,
792
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,560
some of whom are actually dropping down and dying in front of me,
793
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:12,760
they think you're coming with some form of salvation.
794
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:16,200
They don't realise you're coming to take pictures and get information.
795
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:20,080
That's not what they want. You know, they want food.
796
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:39,000
I saw this particular boy that haunts me to this day.
797
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,560
He was an albino boy and he was standing, looking at me.
798
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:44,920
Barely managing to stand on his spindly legs.
799
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:47,200
When you're an albino in Africa,
800
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:50,440
you're singled out all the time for bullying and God knows what.
801
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,440
He was clutching a French corned beef tin,
802
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,760
some previous aid gift which he'd licked the interior completely dry.
803
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,880
And I thought, "I can't look at this boy." It was too much.
804
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,320
He was staring at me, so I went somewhere else
805
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:07,040
and spoke to a doctor, cos another child had collapsed
806
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,320
and was dying and suddenly, somebody touched my hand
807
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:14,360
and I looked down and it was the albino boy, he was holding my hand.
808
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,760
And I thought, "Why are you doing this to me?"
809
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:20,680
It was like he'd honed in on me and he was really paining me,
810
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,320
making me feel so ashamed.
811
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,720
So I gave him a barley sugar from my pocket and he went away
812
00:56:26,720 --> 00:56:30,640
and he stood at a distance, licking this barley sugar.
813
00:56:30,640 --> 00:56:33,720
There were children of two years old,
814
00:56:33,720 --> 00:56:37,360
crawling around on their stomachs with their anus hanging out.
815
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:41,400
I've never seen anything so terrible in all my life,
816
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:44,640
the inside of their whole backside
817
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:48,440
had kind of invertedly kind of suddenly fell out
818
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,040
and they were dragging themselves around
819
00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,960
with this inside-out situation of their bottoms,
820
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:56,720
with flies hanging on as they crawled.
821
00:56:56,720 --> 00:57:00,720
I thought, this was worse than any inferno of insanity
822
00:57:00,720 --> 00:57:03,560
that you could ever experience or see in your life.
823
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,080
It wasn't real, it was so horrible, so shocking.
824
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:12,920
And, you know, I almost become, well, I almost became paralysed.
825
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:14,600
I was so shocked.
826
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:18,320
I thought, "Take your mind off it. Take some pictures."
827
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:21,600
They said, "There's a girl you must see."
828
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,240
They said, "Her name is Patience."
829
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:27,120
They brought her in and she was completely naked.
830
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,080
She was 16 years of age,
831
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:32,400
days, if not one or two days, away from death.
832
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,960
And I thought, "How am I going to do this?"
833
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:39,440
And they sat her down and I asked the nurse
834
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:44,280
if she would place her hands over the lower part of her body,
835
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:46,120
cos I thought, you know,
836
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:47,880
"If I'm going to do this picture
837
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:49,960
"to show this terrible, shocking creature,
838
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:53,360
"I'm going to do it with as much dignity as I can rustle up
839
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:56,720
"and at least not take advantage of her nakedness."
840
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,480
You've never seen a more dignified person, you know,
841
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:07,480
you know, inches away from death.
842
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:11,000
PIANO MUSIC
843
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:22,280
And I remember one day seeing a woman trying to feed a child at the breast.
844
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:26,040
There was nothing for the child at the breast.
845
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:29,520
And I saw some writing at the back, in the far distance.
846
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,680
And after I'd photographed the woman, who, believe it or not,
847
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,920
was only 24 years of age and she looked like 65,
848
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,960
I went and read the writing in the far distance on the wall
849
00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:43,560
and it had on the wall, "Today I am reborn."
850
00:58:47,880 --> 00:58:53,000
And that little inscription took my legs away from me.
851
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:55,920
You know, you can go through so much as a photographer,
852
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:58,040
you put yourself there.
853
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:01,680
You don't ask, you know, you don't ask why you are there.
854
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,800
You go there and the same time you put yourself there.
855
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:06,720
You could refuse if you want.
856
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:09,680
I went there, but when I went there, I photographed these people
857
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:14,440
to show they had more dignity than most of us will ever dream of,
858
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:16,920
that being in the last throes of their life.
859
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:32,240
His awareness of the futility of it,
860
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:39,240
as well as the direct sight of these people dying on their feet...
861
00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:43,600
..moved him enormously.
862
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:45,320
He always had empathy, of course,
863
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:49,400
with the soldier who was shot, but here he was looking at civilians.
864
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:53,040
Men and women without any clue about what was going on,
865
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:55,440
dying because of the ambitions
866
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:58,720
of some of the power-hungry people in the country.
867
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:04,800
MUSIC: "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
868
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:24,000
# If I leave here tomorrow
869
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:29,200
# Would you still remember me?
870
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:39,640
# I must be travelling on now... #
871
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:44,720
I spent my whole life travelling the world. I was really on the move.
872
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:54,280
You know, I was constantly at London Airport
873
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:57,440
and waving goodbye to my little family.
874
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,480
# And this bird shall never change... #
875
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:11,360
I was very eager, as always,
876
01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:14,600
and ambitious to get to the front of the fighting.
877
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,320
And the next thing I know,
878
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,920
we walked into an ambush and all hell broke loose.
879
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:20,960
GUNFIRE
880
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:25,520
There was tremendous, heavy AK-47 fire.
881
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:28,200
And I immediately ran down into the side of the road,
882
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:30,240
which is like a culvert.
883
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:37,240
And I thought, "I'm going to get my tail out of here."
884
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:40,280
Because, you know, what does one picture mean of a soldier under fire
885
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:42,120
if it's going to cost you your life?
886
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:45,120
For the first time, my nerve went.
887
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:47,800
I knelt behind a tube and there was an almighty explosion.
888
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:49,920
I was blown across the road.
889
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:52,320
I felt this terrible burning sensation in my legs
890
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:54,360
and everywhere from the waist downwards.
891
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:58,160
And all my past seemed to come before me and I thought, "This is it. I'm going to die."
892
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:01,160
So I crawled away for about 200 yards,
893
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:03,360
only to be put on the back of a truck,
894
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:05,920
having been stabbed with a morphine injection.
895
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:07,800
And then they filled the lorry up
896
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:10,720
with about half a dozen soldiers who were wounded.
897
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:13,520
I thought, "I'm going to take my mind off my own pain
898
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:16,840
"and I'm going to photograph what's going on in this truck."
899
01:02:17,840 --> 01:02:20,280
They put the man on the truck right next to me
900
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:23,080
who took the full brunt of the mortar bomb that hit me,
901
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:26,880
but he got, unfortunately, all of it in his chest and stomach.
902
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,200
And he kept sitting up and trying to fight people holding him down.
903
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:32,240
He was fighting.
904
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:35,280
And he died on the way back in the truck to the hospital,
905
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:37,840
because I sat up and photographed him.
906
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:41,760
And I said, "I don't want you to take any more risks."
907
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:44,600
They took the risks as they judged fit
908
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:47,200
because they were independently-minded.
909
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:50,920
And I secretly rejoiced that they brought back what they did,
910
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:54,080
but nonetheless, the next time and the next time
911
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:56,120
and the next time, you thought,
912
01:02:56,120 --> 01:03:01,120
"Pray to God that they are not playing Russian roulette with their own lives."
913
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:10,360
LOUD EXPLOSION
914
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:18,560
It was strange for me to get on an aeroplane and fly to Belfast,
915
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:22,000
drive to Londonderry, check into the hotel.
916
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:25,640
And you could guarantee that once the pubs turned out
917
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:27,680
at about 3-something in the afternoon,
918
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:29,320
that there you braced yourself
919
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:31,680
and you knew exactly where it would be.
920
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:35,320
It was almost like a football match. You knew where the action would be.
921
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:37,360
SHOUTING AND SCREAMING
922
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:40,600
It was bricks and bottles and stones
923
01:03:40,600 --> 01:03:43,640
coming at the soldiers, who then fired rubber bullets
924
01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:48,520
and CS gas back, and I used to be gassed on a regular basis.
925
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:51,520
But from a photographer's point of view, you couldn't miss.
926
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:04,560
It was like a theatre, really. It was like a play.
927
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:08,680
You knew the plot, you'd seen it many times before.
928
01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:33,200
This particular day, I knew they were going to charge
929
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:36,480
and I was standing there with my short telephoto lens
930
01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:39,800
and I took this picture of the "let's go and get them".
931
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:45,760
I wasn't totally aware that in the shop doorway by this taxi company
932
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,840
was a woman standing there, holding her mouth with total shock.
933
01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:54,200
That made my picture much more poignant, really.
934
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:24,240
I came upon this highway
935
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:28,320
and saw these dying soldiers in the road, and I was with a very
936
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:32,720
nice friend of mine called Michael Nicholson, who was an ITV reporter.
937
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:36,560
Their wounds were kind of melting into the tar itself on the road.
938
01:05:36,560 --> 01:05:38,800
So hot.
939
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:41,240
We prised them off the road and we draped them
940
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:44,200
across the bonnet of his Jeep.
941
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:46,960
And I stood on the front of it and kind of leaned on them
942
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:51,200
and we drove them back to a first aid medical centre for the army.
943
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:55,720
And we went back the next morning to see how they were, but they had died.
944
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:07,960
And I did lots of pictures of men coming in on that road
945
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:09,960
with pieces of cardboard around their feet,
946
01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:12,320
because they threw their boots away
947
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:14,920
and, of course, they didn't last long on that road.
948
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:20,640
The whole thing was the most appalling shambles.
949
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:23,640
It was like the retreat from Moscow. Terrible disarray.
950
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:29,480
And so, when the Sunday Times published these pictures,
951
01:06:29,480 --> 01:06:33,040
the South Vietnamese Government put me on a blacklist,
952
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:35,840
which I never thought for one minute existed.
953
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:42,480
I was building this reputation as a war photographer,
954
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:44,680
which today I really detest.
955
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:46,520
I worked for it and then,
956
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:50,920
when I suddenly felt that I was being acclaimed as a war photographer,
957
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:53,120
suddenly I felt uncomfortable and dirty.
958
01:06:53,120 --> 01:06:55,320
I felt being called a war photographer
959
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:57,360
was like being called a mercenary.
960
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:12,480
Looking back on all that, I thought my family suffered very badly.
961
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:15,880
I was always waving goodbye to them and one wonders in their mind,
962
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:19,040
were they ever thinking, "Will we ever see this strange man again,
963
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:21,240
"who is supposed to be our father?"
964
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:26,840
But, you know, I didn't want to weaken my strength
965
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:29,320
by thinking in a sentimental way.
966
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:33,080
I wanted to do my job and then hopefully go home to them,
967
01:07:33,080 --> 01:07:36,280
but it was very selfish, now I look back on it.
968
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:38,840
And it eventually ruined by marriage.
969
01:08:09,440 --> 01:08:11,480
GUNFIRE
970
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:16,120
In Beirut's Christian stronghold,
971
01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:21,080
Phalangist militiamen poured fire on neighbouring areas
972
01:08:21,080 --> 01:08:23,160
held by Muslim leftists
973
01:08:23,160 --> 01:08:26,920
and allies from the more extreme Palestinian guerrilla group.
974
01:08:26,920 --> 01:08:29,240
Every day you had a twist in the Lebanon.
975
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:34,080
There is always something ghastly and new to kind of look at.
976
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:37,680
I did this photograph of all these Christians,
977
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:40,960
all proudly showing their manly side to them.
978
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:46,040
And the audacity was that they were wearing Christian crosses
979
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:48,680
and, you know, you think...
980
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:52,160
you expect more from Christianity
981
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:55,440
if you're displaying it in such a way than some of the terrible things
982
01:08:55,440 --> 01:08:58,560
that they did in the name of Christianity.
983
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:02,240
On the political front, the situation still appears to be stalemate.
984
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:05,200
Efforts to implement a ceasefire clearly having failed
985
01:09:05,200 --> 01:09:08,520
and parliament's attempts to hold a session...
986
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:12,760
The Palestinian areas, the kind of east side of Beirut,
987
01:09:12,760 --> 01:09:16,080
right inside the Christian heartland.
988
01:09:17,520 --> 01:09:23,080
And it was just, it was murder from the word go.
989
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:25,080
MUSIC
990
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:33,000
They started, you know, collecting prisoners.
991
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:34,960
It all happened so quickly.
992
01:09:36,800 --> 01:09:40,400
I went to a house where I could hear a lot of women and children screaming.
993
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:42,760
A Christian was bringing the women and children down
994
01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:47,400
the side of this stairwell and I could see two Palestinian young men
995
01:09:47,400 --> 01:09:51,800
with their hands up, in the left-hand side of the stairwell.
996
01:09:53,880 --> 01:09:57,440
The moment the women went out of the house,
997
01:09:57,440 --> 01:10:00,960
the man next to me, and I was very close, you know,
998
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:04,880
very close, started opening up and killing these people in cold blood, immediately.
999
01:10:04,880 --> 01:10:08,360
And they went down in a hail of bullets and blood, all up the wall.
1000
01:10:10,120 --> 01:10:13,760
And I went round the back of the stairwell, another stairwell,
1001
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,840
and try to get a grip of myself, cos I was so shocked.
1002
01:10:16,840 --> 01:10:18,840
I couldn't believe what I had just seen.
1003
01:10:19,840 --> 01:10:21,640
I came out of the building
1004
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:24,880
and there was another Christian gunman who had the women and children
1005
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:27,480
and he said, "By the way, if I see you taking any pictures,
1006
01:10:27,480 --> 01:10:30,320
"I am going to kill you myself. Get out of here."
1007
01:10:33,360 --> 01:10:35,280
Everywhere I went that day,
1008
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:38,800
I could see another person being murdered in front of me.
1009
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:42,520
Of course, what I did eventually was get the picture of the man
1010
01:10:42,520 --> 01:10:45,760
playing the lute over the dead Palestinian girl's body.
1011
01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:53,480
They were so angry about it when it was published that they said
1012
01:10:53,480 --> 01:10:57,400
if they ever caught the man who took the picture, they would kill him.
1013
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:04,160
In a way, it was almost an honour
1014
01:11:04,160 --> 01:11:06,840
that they wanted to kill me for taking the picture.
1015
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:13,760
The 26-storey Holiday Inn is burning.
1016
01:11:13,760 --> 01:11:16,680
The third of a trio of five-star hotels
1017
01:11:16,680 --> 01:11:18,600
to be caught in the firing line.
1018
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:20,960
This is the courtyard of the Hilton Hotel
1019
01:11:20,960 --> 01:11:24,680
and it was here that the fighting took place all last night.
1020
01:11:24,680 --> 01:11:31,480
When the Islamics overwhelmed part of the Christian area where I was,
1021
01:11:31,480 --> 01:11:36,120
they were actually ensconced in the Hilton Hotel and when they got in,
1022
01:11:36,120 --> 01:11:38,280
the Christians that they'd captured in there,
1023
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:41,480
they took them to the top floor and they mutilated them
1024
01:11:41,480 --> 01:11:46,320
in a manly sense, by cutting off part of them, and they threw them,
1025
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:48,720
alive, off the top of the building.
1026
01:11:50,440 --> 01:11:53,360
When it gets down to that kind of hatred,
1027
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:56,040
it becomes a form of insanity.
1028
01:11:56,040 --> 01:12:01,200
It goes beyond your understanding of anything. Anything.
1029
01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:13,160
I don't know how he did it. He had a very sensitive conscience.
1030
01:12:13,160 --> 01:12:16,480
I would often call him "the conscience with a camera".
1031
01:12:16,480 --> 01:12:21,000
He had a very sensitive feel for other people's suffering,
1032
01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:25,080
which also gave him the impetus to feel,
1033
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:29,040
"I can make people wake up to what is really going on here".
1034
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:32,240
So the sensitivity which might have made him
1035
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:37,400
recoil from the images was allied to this conscience of his which says,
1036
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:41,560
"I've got to get this story. It can only be told by photographs."
1037
01:12:41,560 --> 01:12:47,400
His journalism, which is best when that cold eye of his,
1038
01:12:47,400 --> 01:12:52,400
if you like, was informed by the warmth of his empathy,
1039
01:12:52,400 --> 01:12:57,200
and by the text, which amplified the image which you could see.
1040
01:12:57,200 --> 01:13:00,960
It's an awful question to ask you, but do you think the images you take
1041
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:04,920
of horror, of war, actually make anybody change their mind about it?
1042
01:13:04,920 --> 01:13:07,240
Actually, to be honest, I don't think they have.
1043
01:13:07,240 --> 01:13:09,440
I've been photographing war for about 16 years
1044
01:13:09,440 --> 01:13:11,680
and I've got very disillusioned.
1045
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:14,240
And I've just had an exhibition
1046
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:17,680
and the exhibition was mostly attended by very young people
1047
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:20,920
and judging by the letters that I have received, which were many,
1048
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:23,720
the people who wrote to me were very young people
1049
01:13:23,720 --> 01:13:25,920
and they are the people who care about war.
1050
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:27,880
I think the rest of us, the middle-aged,
1051
01:13:27,880 --> 01:13:32,160
I hate to say this, people, they've had war and they've had enough of it.
1052
01:13:32,160 --> 01:13:35,000
I think they are sick about hearing about it now.
1053
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,400
They think there is no solution, but the young people,
1054
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:39,360
who are tomorrow's people,
1055
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:42,360
they are more interested about trying to do something about it.
1056
01:13:42,360 --> 01:13:45,080
They feel ashamed of it and can't understand it.
1057
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:48,160
I mean, why don't you settle for the easy life and earn 500 quid
1058
01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:51,000
a day taking pictures of ladies wearing bras and things?
1059
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:55,120
- Or not wearing bras?
- I would probably get a heart attack.
1060
01:13:55,120 --> 01:13:57,160
LAUGHTER
1061
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:00,880
Did you like this one? The sulky lover?
1062
01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:04,480
You would be if you had a face like that against you.
1063
01:14:04,480 --> 01:14:06,480
THEY LAUGH
1064
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:13,040
This is one of my favourite pictures. I don't have many favourites.
1065
01:14:13,040 --> 01:14:16,160
It's a classic example of intrusion, of course,
1066
01:14:16,160 --> 01:14:19,920
but it's just showing the English.
1067
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:22,200
The deckchairs says it all, doesn't it?
1068
01:14:22,200 --> 01:14:25,200
One thing about England, you can guarantee to find
1069
01:14:25,200 --> 01:14:28,320
all kinds of kind of crazy people in the summer.
1070
01:14:30,600 --> 01:14:34,000
There's not, I don't think there is a country quite like this country
1071
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:37,080
for the diversities of people's manifestations.
1072
01:14:37,080 --> 01:14:38,960
You know, eccentrics.
1073
01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:41,800
You can get them by the bus-load here in England. I love it.
1074
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:43,800
MUSIC: "This Is England" by The Clash
1075
01:14:43,800 --> 01:14:47,880
# I hear a gang fire on a human factory farm
1076
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:51,320
# Are they howling out or doing somebody harm?
1077
01:14:54,360 --> 01:14:58,680
# On a catwalk jungle somebody grabbed my arm
1078
01:15:00,920 --> 01:15:04,800
# A voice spoke so cold, it matched the weapon in her palm
1079
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:09,960
# This is England
1080
01:15:09,960 --> 01:15:12,640
# This knife of Sheffield steel
1081
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:15,480
# This is England
1082
01:15:15,480 --> 01:15:18,520
# This is how we feel
1083
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:38,360
# This is England... #
1084
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:02,400
When the print unions sabotaged the Sunday Times,
1085
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:04,640
they basically killed the paper.
1086
01:16:04,640 --> 01:16:07,800
The Thomson Organisation said, "We can't go on like this.
1087
01:16:07,800 --> 01:16:12,560
"We can't have the paper wrecked not only physically but economically."
1088
01:16:12,560 --> 01:16:15,000
So they put the paper up for sale.
1089
01:16:17,160 --> 01:16:19,720
And they had a perception, a judgement,
1090
01:16:19,720 --> 01:16:24,080
that Rupert Murdoch, with his history of being pretty tough,
1091
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:27,280
would be better able to control the print unions.
1092
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:32,000
And in some respects, that was a fair judgement.
1093
01:16:32,000 --> 01:16:34,360
You've had enough photographs. I think we really...
1094
01:16:34,360 --> 01:16:36,720
- And with Mr Evans.
- Mr Evans.
1095
01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:41,920
And though he made promises about the papers would maintain
1096
01:16:41,920 --> 01:16:44,800
their independence, he did not keep them.
1097
01:16:44,800 --> 01:16:50,480
And this, of course, was very, very bad news for British journalism
1098
01:16:50,480 --> 01:16:54,680
but it was also bad news, individually, for Don McCullin.
1099
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:56,760
When Murdoch took over the Sunday Times
1100
01:16:56,760 --> 01:16:59,360
and Harold Evans went over to the Times newspaper,
1101
01:16:59,360 --> 01:17:03,840
we all felt that, you know, we were looking at the beginning of the end.
1102
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:07,880
And I had had 18 fantastic years there.
1103
01:17:07,880 --> 01:17:12,720
The precious independence that he'd had and the ability to go
1104
01:17:12,720 --> 01:17:16,480
and tell an unvarnished truth through the medium of film
1105
01:17:16,480 --> 01:17:20,200
was now at risk, and so it proved to be.
1106
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:29,280
MUSIC
1107
01:17:43,880 --> 01:17:46,920
The Falklands War suddenly appeared on the horizon and I thought,
1108
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:51,880
"I want to be in on this, because for the first time in my life,
1109
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:55,520
"I'm going to be in a big, international war with British soldiers."
1110
01:17:55,520 --> 01:17:58,160
You know, I thought I was the natural person
1111
01:17:58,160 --> 01:18:00,640
and to my astonishment, I was barred.
1112
01:18:00,640 --> 01:18:03,240
It didn't happen.
1113
01:18:03,240 --> 01:18:08,400
I was left behind and I was utterly miserable and devastated.
1114
01:18:10,640 --> 01:18:14,200
It was an appalling decision to keep Don McCullin off the boat,
1115
01:18:14,200 --> 01:18:17,040
creating the excuse that boat was full.
1116
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:23,600
It seemed to be saying, "Your photography is so honest,
1117
01:18:23,600 --> 01:18:27,880
"so searing, so implicit with meaning, we can't take the risk
1118
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:31,720
"of you accessing freedom of expression."
1119
01:18:31,720 --> 01:18:34,240
I thought it was the most appalling decision
1120
01:18:34,240 --> 01:18:37,040
and its effect on him was to seem to say,
1121
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:40,680
"You've spent your life documenting things
1122
01:18:40,680 --> 01:18:43,480
"we don't think you should ever have documented,"
1123
01:18:43,480 --> 01:18:48,200
which, of course, was saying, "Why have you bothered?
1124
01:18:48,200 --> 01:18:52,120
"Why have you bothered to risk your life to try and tell the truth?"
1125
01:18:56,080 --> 01:18:59,600
That's the reason I went back to Lebanon,
1126
01:18:59,600 --> 01:19:01,680
because I didn't go to the Falklands.
1127
01:19:01,680 --> 01:19:04,480
The Lebanon War was erupting at the same time.
1128
01:19:04,480 --> 01:19:07,000
Cos, you know, I can always go somewhere else.
1129
01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:09,760
If I couldn't go to this war, I could go to another war, you know.
1130
01:19:09,760 --> 01:19:14,520
Cos I was suffering from what you become, a war junkie, really.
1131
01:19:14,520 --> 01:19:16,920
I was suffering from that problem, you know.
1132
01:19:16,920 --> 01:19:22,360
The massacres were carried out by an elite special security formation
1133
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:25,360
of the Lebanese Christian Phalange.
1134
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:28,000
The operation was, at all stages,
1135
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:31,920
under direct control of senior Phalange commanders.
1136
01:19:31,920 --> 01:19:34,680
During that early stage of the massacre at Shatila Camp,
1137
01:19:34,680 --> 01:19:40,200
the Israeli forces fired a constant barrage of flares
1138
01:19:40,200 --> 01:19:43,160
to light up the camp for the Phalange forces.
1139
01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:46,440
CLASSICAL MUSIC
1140
01:20:43,440 --> 01:20:45,800
One morning in the hotel, very early,
1141
01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:49,880
I had a call from someone saying, "Are you Mr McCullin?" I said yes.
1142
01:20:49,880 --> 01:20:52,960
They said, "Will you come down to the lobby?
1143
01:20:52,960 --> 01:20:56,600
"We want to take you to the hospital at Sabra and Shatila."
1144
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:01,320
They said, "About 21 people have been killed in this hospital,
1145
01:21:01,320 --> 01:21:03,080
"but we are not interested in that.
1146
01:21:03,080 --> 01:21:07,440
"We want to show you the worst aspect of what has happened here today."
1147
01:21:07,440 --> 01:21:10,560
They took me upstairs to the children's department
1148
01:21:10,560 --> 01:21:13,840
of the insane side of the hospital
1149
01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:16,880
and to my astonishment, there was one nurse who had stayed
1150
01:21:16,880 --> 01:21:20,360
for five days during this shelling and the others had fled the hospital.
1151
01:21:25,440 --> 01:21:28,080
And she showed me around and I couldn't believe
1152
01:21:28,080 --> 01:21:30,000
what I was looking at.
1153
01:21:30,000 --> 01:21:33,120
She said, "We've had to tie the children to the beds,"
1154
01:21:33,120 --> 01:21:35,880
she said, "because we couldn't cope.
1155
01:21:35,880 --> 01:21:38,280
"They would have got away and been injured."
1156
01:21:38,280 --> 01:21:40,720
And there were children tied to the beds,
1157
01:21:40,720 --> 01:21:43,920
covered in flies, in a heat you wouldn't understand.
1158
01:21:45,040 --> 01:21:48,520
So these children were lying in buckets of their own filth,
1159
01:21:48,520 --> 01:21:50,920
starving hungry, dying of thirst.
1160
01:21:52,400 --> 01:21:54,440
MUSIC
1161
01:22:06,280 --> 01:22:09,360
And she said, "There is a room with more children.
1162
01:22:09,360 --> 01:22:13,600
"I've had to lock them in the room and they are blind and insane,"
1163
01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:17,000
and she said, "They're only two years old, some of them."
1164
01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:19,160
And she opened the door of this room
1165
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:23,240
and the heat that came out of it, you could've roasted a chicken in it.
1166
01:22:23,240 --> 01:22:26,920
And out swam, in their own filth and mess,
1167
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:29,920
they were like blind rats, these children.
1168
01:22:32,080 --> 01:22:35,640
I don't think I was ever more ashamed of humanity.
1169
01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:40,840
I thought, "If this is what people can do in the name of, you know,
1170
01:22:40,840 --> 01:22:43,920
"Christianity or whatever, you know..."
1171
01:22:43,920 --> 01:22:46,760
Because the war was being conducted against the Christians,
1172
01:22:46,760 --> 01:22:51,360
or the Christians were fighting back and the Jews were shelling,
1173
01:22:51,360 --> 01:22:55,320
I mean, the whole thing was about religious madness.
1174
01:22:55,320 --> 01:22:57,560
Who was paying the price?
1175
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:02,760
I wandered away. I was in deep shock and I thought, "I'm confused, here.
1176
01:23:02,760 --> 01:23:09,360
"Why am I here? What has this got to do with my original concept of being a photographer?"
1177
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:15,560
And I wandered into another room just to get away
1178
01:23:15,560 --> 01:23:18,320
from all this horrible, horrible stuff.
1179
01:23:18,320 --> 01:23:20,760
And I saw a child sitting,
1180
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:24,920
playing with bits of debris as if he had Lego.
1181
01:23:29,400 --> 01:23:32,120
I think it was a day of reckoning for me,
1182
01:23:32,120 --> 01:23:35,800
because I don't think I could have ever touched on more tragedy,
1183
01:23:35,800 --> 01:23:38,880
all under one roof, than what I saw at that hospital that day.
1184
01:23:38,880 --> 01:23:40,960
I've never forgotten it.
1185
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:50,760
The sad thing about these days that I never forget
1186
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:54,040
is that they come back, on a regular basis,
1187
01:23:54,040 --> 01:23:57,840
as fresh as it was happening today, to haunt me.
1188
01:24:08,120 --> 01:24:11,200
There is nothing so powerful as reporting.
1189
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:15,440
The government can't find out the things that reporters can.
1190
01:24:15,440 --> 01:24:18,280
Certainly, many governments wish to suppress
1191
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:22,800
what can be found out, foreign governments and sometimes our own.
1192
01:24:22,800 --> 01:24:24,920
So this is a very,
1193
01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:28,840
very important quality of Don's impulses,
1194
01:24:28,840 --> 01:24:32,200
which is the passion to report what is happening
1195
01:24:32,200 --> 01:24:35,400
and insofar as that has diminished today,
1196
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:37,160
we've lost a huge amount
1197
01:24:37,160 --> 01:24:40,000
and I think there is still a tremendous appetite
1198
01:24:40,000 --> 01:24:43,680
for really good photojournalism, really good reporting.
1199
01:24:44,680 --> 01:24:47,080
Mr Rupert Murdoch, on budget day,
1200
01:24:47,080 --> 01:24:51,680
asked me to resign as Editor of the Times. I refused.
1201
01:24:52,680 --> 01:24:54,800
At no time have the independent
1202
01:24:54,800 --> 01:24:57,840
national directors sought my resignation.
1203
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:03,240
But in the circumstances, the differences between me
1204
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:05,640
and Mr Murdoch should not be prolonged.
1205
01:25:06,960 --> 01:25:11,080
I am therefore resigning tonight as the Editor of the Times.
1206
01:25:11,080 --> 01:25:15,080
The reason I got pushed out of the Sunday Times was simple, actually.
1207
01:25:15,080 --> 01:25:16,840
They had brought a new editor in.
1208
01:25:16,840 --> 01:25:19,280
A man called Andrew Neil, who was very ambitious,
1209
01:25:19,280 --> 01:25:22,320
and quite, you know, he knew what he wanted.
1210
01:25:22,320 --> 01:25:26,720
Most new editors like to kick off with a new bunch of people
1211
01:25:26,720 --> 01:25:30,640
under them, but he did say that there would be no more
1212
01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:33,800
wars in the magazine and in fact, it would be a magazine
1213
01:25:33,800 --> 01:25:38,400
based on life and leisure, you know, to attract the ads.
1214
01:25:38,400 --> 01:25:42,400
So I was one of the first casualties,
1215
01:25:42,400 --> 01:25:45,720
because when I went and photographed wars and Africa
1216
01:25:45,720 --> 01:25:47,760
and dying and starving children,
1217
01:25:47,760 --> 01:25:52,160
I was going to make sure that I got the strongest images.
1218
01:25:52,160 --> 01:25:54,800
They didn't always sit well in a magazine
1219
01:25:54,800 --> 01:25:58,680
that was trying to sell you, you know, cars and luxury.
1220
01:25:58,680 --> 01:26:01,920
So I was definitely on the way out by that stage.
1221
01:26:30,240 --> 01:26:32,680
I asked him about the occasion he was invited to
1222
01:26:32,680 --> 01:26:36,440
an execution in Saigon and as I recall,
1223
01:26:36,440 --> 01:26:39,400
he went to the prison where the execution was going to take place
1224
01:26:39,400 --> 01:26:43,040
and turned back and refused to take the photograph.
1225
01:26:43,040 --> 01:26:47,080
It was because of his really powerful humanitarian impulses,
1226
01:26:47,080 --> 01:26:51,240
he didn't want to legitimise murder in any way.
1227
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:55,440
Since, actually, his entire canon of photography
1228
01:26:55,440 --> 01:26:58,800
is to delegitimise violence and say,
1229
01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:02,480
"Look, these are the consequences of your political decision.
1230
01:27:02,480 --> 01:27:05,120
"These are the consequences of your greed.
1231
01:27:05,120 --> 01:27:08,040
"These are the consequences of your carelessness.
1232
01:27:08,040 --> 01:27:10,080
"Look on these and think again."
1233
01:27:10,080 --> 01:27:15,040
I think his entire impulse, a humanitarian photographer
1234
01:27:15,040 --> 01:27:20,320
with tremendous technical skill, amounting to genius, in my view.
1235
01:27:22,000 --> 01:27:24,160
MUSIC
1236
01:27:27,400 --> 01:27:29,560
I'm nearly 75 years of age now.
1237
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:33,080
I still have some energy left, not a lot,
1238
01:27:33,080 --> 01:27:37,960
but I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to eradicate,
1239
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:40,240
you know, the things we've been talking about.
1240
01:27:40,240 --> 01:27:42,920
I'm just going to photograph the landscape,
1241
01:27:42,920 --> 01:27:46,440
and the English landscape, to me, is my heaven.
1242
01:27:46,440 --> 01:27:48,480
My form of heaven.
1243
01:27:50,760 --> 01:27:54,240
The one thing that upsets me about it is, like all other things,
1244
01:27:54,240 --> 01:27:57,520
there is always a threat surrounding the things you love.
1245
01:27:57,520 --> 01:28:00,960
When I hear a chainsaw in the distance, you know,
1246
01:28:00,960 --> 01:28:02,960
I think a tree is dying.
1247
01:28:02,960 --> 01:28:05,920
When I hear shooting, when there is pheasant shooting,
1248
01:28:05,920 --> 01:28:08,640
I think there's going to be some blood somewhere.
1249
01:28:08,640 --> 01:28:11,200
The sound of gunfire immediately switches on
1250
01:28:11,200 --> 01:28:14,720
another part of my nervous system.
1251
01:28:18,320 --> 01:28:22,640
So I feel, as much as you try to run away from these things,
1252
01:28:22,640 --> 01:28:25,760
someone always presses a button and says, you know,
1253
01:28:25,760 --> 01:28:29,880
"Here is a reminder of, you know, what you used to do."
1254
01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:16,120
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