I suppose one of the good things about old age is that you do have more time for reflection. But the problem, I’ve found, is that you don’t seem to have much of a choice about what to reflect on. So the lucky escapes and the cruel encounters and the ghastly injuries I’ve seen keep coming back to me unbidden, sharp and clear as in a photograph. And there’s another thing that really is puzzling me.
Lately, I’ve been going to bed at night thinking about the Holocaust. It never leaves me. I put myself in the death camps, and hopelessly try to devise methods of survival and escape. It’s as if my own direct experiences of danger are inadequate and my imagination feels compelled to come up with even more dreadful situations. I can’t think why. It’s not a deliberate choice. My preference would be for reverie of a more tranquil nature. It’s probably one of life’s inexplicable contradictions.
Another contradiction, of a much less harrowing nature, relates to my wife’s work. In the normal course of her duties as a leading travel writer, Catherine gets invited to stay at some fabulous places. And occasionally I am included in the free promotional package. This has taken me to some amazing establishments. In one hotel the ceiling was so high I thought I’d woken up in the Royal Albert Hall. In another, in India, we had our own private swimming pool as part of the suite. These are the kind of places where a paying customer can expect to fork out £5,000 and more for one night. But am I grateful? Sadly, I’m not.
I lie in these temples of high consumption, thinking how much I would prefer to be back home tucked up in my own bed. So after almost a lifetime of complaining about the grinding poverty of my childhood, I find myself grumbling on in old age about the oppression of the luxury I have to put up with. Small wonder that Catherine sometimes thinks I’m hard to please, though on most other levels our mutual understanding could hardly be bettered.
As a journalist herself, she certainly understands my need to feel in touch with the outside world, though she sometimes asks me to tone down what she calls my ‘morning rant’ at John Humphrys and company on the Today programme. She also understands my ambition, even if she’s not always inclined to share it.
The remarkable fact is that, even in my eightieth year, I am not without a measure of peer-group pressure, particularly from the brilliant crowd of Sunday Times journalists who came up with me through the Sixties, many of whom are still resolute achievers. Harry Evans, with his sprightliness enhanced by two knee replacements, is still making journalistic waves in New York; James Fox is back in the big time as the wordsmith of Life, the best-selling memoir of Keith Richards, the Rolling Stone guitarist; Phil Jacobson is still churning out his high-quality magazine articles, while Willie Shawcross, would you believe, is chairman of the Charities Commission.
Three of the leading characters in the Sunday Times magazine art department which handled all my pictures are also still at it: Mike Rand exhibits his visual wit and wisdom on the ‘Professional Photographer’ website; David King now displays his unique collection of Soviet poster art on the walls of Tate Modern, while Roger Law is currently capping his career as the co-creator (with Peter Fluck) of the Spitting Image TV satire series by designing and decorating some of the biggest porcelain pots England has ever seen.
There’s not much evidence of actual retirement going on. I could, of course, produce a longer and more sombre list of those who have passed away, but even most of them died with a work in progress. I sometimes feel, as an unlikely survivor, that I should be carrying some of their collective quality forward for the benefit of future generations. Unfortunately, old age, or at least my old age, does not seem to work that way. I am no smarter for knowing other super-intelligent Sunday Times contemporaries such as Murray Sayle, David Leith and Hugo Young, all now sadly among the deceased. The best I can do is miss them.
I don’t have much wisdom to pass on, even about photography. The plain fact is that you can possess the best camera that ever came out of Japan and still only produce photographs that are no better than a succession of eyesores. Yet a Box Brownie, in the right hands, is still capable of yielding an image that would have made Henri Cartier-Bresson proud. Equipment is fun to play with but it’s the eye that counts. I’m not saying that the eye for a picture cannot ever be taught, but the only sure route to it is through a lot of personal trial and error.
I do, however, have one tip that should be useful for would-be itinerant photo-journalists. Always make your own bed before leaving a hotel room, never leave it to the maid. The logic of this is that you can lay out all your bits and pieces of gear on a properly made bed, and check it over before bunging it into the travel bag. I’ve seen many an assignment ruined by photographers departing in haste and leaving their light meters, and sometimes even their passports, behind still nestled in the crumpled sheets.
One of the things that does disturb me is that some documentary photography is now being presented as art. Although I am hugely honoured to have been one of the first photographers to have their work bought and exhibited by the Tate gallery, I feel ambiguous about my photographs being treated as art. I really can’t talk of the people in my war photographs as the subjects of art. They are real. They are not arranging themselves for the purposes of display. They are people whose suffering I have inhaled and that I’ve felt bound to record. But it’s the record of the witness that is important, not the artistic impression. I have been greatly influenced by art, that is true, but I don’t see this kind of photography itself as being art.
In this digital age, of course, everybody can be a photographer, and that’s not a bad thing. However, there are some areas of professional photography that are not having such a good time.
It is, for example, much tougher for press photographers now than it was in my days as a staff photographer on the Sunday Times. Still reeling from the impact of the Internet, newspapers are cutting back in all directions, and the budget for photography has been one of the major casualties. There are far fewer staff positions and most of the jobs are done by freelances, often with little or no back-up.
When I was in Idi Amin’s jail in Uganda I saw a newspaper report in which I was incorrectly described as a ‘freelance photographer’, and I remember being almost paralysed with apprehension as it suggested to my jailers that I might be much more casually disposed of than a man from the Sunday Times. There are many freelance photographers operating right now in the worst danger spots of the Middle East but, as the casualty figures show, at far greater risk to themselves than was previously the case. I am pleased to say that the Frontline Club in Paddington, of which I’m an honorary member, has launched a Frontline Freelance Register with the aim of assisting those working in war zones with issues like employer responsibility, welfare, digital security and insurance. It has not come a moment too soon.
My main hope in old age is to live long enough to see Max, a bright light in my life, through his school years at Marlborough College, though I realise that I’m not likely to be able to do that by passively watching and waiting. I’m already walking around the crater’s edge of the volcano due to be transformed into ash at less than a moment’s notice, but that’s hardly within my control. It’s the keeping on ‘keeping on going’ that’s becoming the issue.
Max, 2006
My feet, even encased in Mark Shand’s sturdy wellies, are beginning to protest, to the extent that I may soon have to abandon my landscape photography. My reduced tolerance for the chemicals in my dark room means that I have to limit the time spent in what was once my happiest work environment. And war, I think I can now say with reasonable confidence, is out of the question.
The Somerset Levels, 2014
Still, there is more work to do. I am putting together several new volumes of my photographs, planning new exhibitions in America and closer to home, and I’m arranging a trip to Nagaland, in India, in honour of Mark Shand. Waking up today to a morning of birdsong, and stepping out of my back door, I spot the antlers of
a deer emerging from the mist in my orchard. The light breaks through the cloud, striking the Iron Age hill fort like the fingers of God. And I find myself saying: ‘Thank you . . . whoever you are.’
Somerset, 2014
INDEX
DM indicates Don McCullin.
Entries in italics indicate photographs.
All page numbers refer to the print edition of Unreasonable Behavior. Please use the search feature on your reader to locate the text that corresponds to the index entries below.
A Day in the Life of the Beatles (McCullin) 343
ABC News 310, 334, 335–6
Aché Indians 204–5, 207
Achebe, Chinua 137
Adams, Eddie 109
Aden: DM’s national service in 37
advertising (commercial) photography 208, 294, 298, 310, 316–18, 321
Afghanistan 3, 251, 253–9, 256–7, 260, 314, 338, 358
Aids, African epidemic 322–7, 323, 338
Aleppo, Syria 352–6, 357, 360
Alexander, Andrew 91, 92
Alexandria, Egypt 105, 285
Algeria 147, 209, 344, 345
Amazon rain forest 168, 169–70
Amin, Idi 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 194, 364
Amman, Jordan 160–5, 235–6
Ammar, Abu see Arafat, Yasser
An Loc, Vietnam 198–9
Anstey, John 91
Antonioni, Michelangelo 95
Anza, Hakim 353, 355, 360, 361
Aoun, General 286, 292
Arab-Israeli conflict see Six Day War
Arab Spring, 2010–11, 351–2
Arafat, Yasser 229, 235–7, 239, 251, 281, 282
Arbenz, President 171
Ark (boat) 280
Armstrong-Jones, Anthony (later Lord Snowdon) 96, 157
Arthur, King 90
Aserati, Bert 40
Ashton, Laraine 262–3, 275, 283, 285, 288, 293, 295, 299, 300, 302–3, 307, 310, 316, 319, 358
Assad, President Bashar al- 352, 355
Associated Television 242
Astles, Bob 189–94
Astor, David 45
Astoria Cinema, Finsbury Park 21, 22, 43
Asunción, Paraguay 210, 211, 212
Attallah, Naim 234
Ayios Sozomenos, Cyprus 58, 61–2
Bailey, David 262
Batcombe, Somerset: DM’s house in 285, 290, 293, 294, 303, 307, 309, 310, 316, 318, 319, 320, 322, 329, 331, 339, 341, 345, 357, 358, 359, 362
BBC television 44, 100, 164, 198, 239, 332, 334; Panorama 164
Beatles, the 96, 343
Bedouin 160, 237
Beeston, Richard 350–1, 356, 359
Beirut, Lebanon 143; Christians/Christian Falange in, 1976 220–3, 224, 225–30, 232–3, 260; DM visits with David Cornwell (John le Carré) 245; Israeli bombing of, 1982 280–3, 284, 285–6; Palestinians in 221, 222, 225, 229, 230–1, 232–3, 235–7; Syrian forces in 238
Beka’a valley, Lebanon 230
Berets Rouges 144–5, 162
Berlin, Germany 49, 50, 56–7
Bhagalpur Blindings, India 261
Biafra, conflict in, 1967–70 3, 96, 122–37, 133, 136, 149, 168, 187, 188, 239, 267, 308; starving children in 122–37
Bihar, India 88, 261
Bioko, Macias Nguena 287
Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire: DM’s farmhouse in 194, 241, 302–3, 307
Black September extremists 235
Blair, Tony 331, 332
Bloody Sunday, Derry, 1972 180
Blow Up (film) 95
Blundy, David 275, 285, 308
Boas brothers 169–70
Bogside, Derry 161–5, 175, 177, 178–80
Borchgrave, Arnaud de 162, 163
Bradford 241, 341
Brandt, Bill 37
Brassaï 37
Brazil 168–9
Bridges, Marilyn 317–21, 322
Britain: and Biafra 123; and Falklands war 276–9, 343; and Iran 247; and Israeli-Palestinian conflict 237–8; and Vietnam 197–8; see also England
British Virgin Islands 91–2
Brodie, Steve 204
Brown, Jane 45
Buford, Bill 289
Bukavu, Congo 81
Bunk, The (Wadcote Street) 13, 17, 24, 27, 43
Burntollet Bridge ambush, Northern Ireland 178
Burrows, Larry 3, 90
Bush, President George W. 331, 333
Bush Sr, President George 311, 313, 334
Caazapá, Paraguay 211
Cagnoni, Romano 204
Cairo, Egypt 98
Calavera, Maria (Mary Skull) 212
Calcutta, India 173–4, 175
Cambodia 3, 149–59, 156, 159, 160, 162, 202–3, 216–19, 217, 279, 320; see also Khmer Rouge
Cambodian army 150–1, 153, 154, 155, 157
Cambridge University: Granta 289–90
camels 143, 255, 310
Camera magazine 50
Canal Zone 30, 34, 98
cannibalism 73, 142
Capa, Cornell 3, 103, 357
Capa, Robert 3, 22, 103
Carlsson (missionary) 78
Caron, Gilles 124–6, 127, 128, 149, 155, 308
Carter, Camilla 316
Carter, President Jimmy 249
Castro, Fidel 93, 96, 97, 264
‘Catastrophe, The’ 238
Cavala, George de 122
Cecilio Baez camp, Paraguay 210–13
Chad, war in 3, 143–8
Chalabi, Ahmad 333, 334, 335, 336
Chancellor, Alexander 311
Chapman, Jessie 19
Chatwin, Bruce 209, 344, 347
Chicago 93, 94
Chichicastenango, Guatemala 170
China 195–7
Chou En-lai 195, 196, 197
Christians/Christian Falange, Lebanese 222–3, 224, 225–31, 232–3, 235, 280, 285–6
Christian Aid 322–6, 338
Churchill, Sir Winston 106, 107
CIA: in Congo 74–5, 81; in Guatemala 171; in Iran 247; Iraq War and 333; in South-East Asia 149
Clifton, Tony 140, 141, 142, 280–1
Cold Heaven (McCullin) 338
Colorado Valley 213–14
Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, London 65–6
Congo 3, 71–81, 72, 82, 91, 119, 188
Conrad, Joseph xiii, 71, 244
Consett, Durham 209, 341
Cooper, Mr (schoolteacher) 24
Cooper, Roger 246–52, 253–9, 314
Cornell Capa Award 357
Cornwell, David see le Carré, John
Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay 212
C-rats (Vietnam) 114
Crookston, Peter 96
CS gas 175
Cuba 96–7, 264, 339
Cyprus; civil war 53–64, 60, 61, 62–3, 75, 82; DM’s family holiday in 172; DM’s national service in 36–7
Czechoslovakia 161, 343
Da Nang, Vietnam 86, 111, 120, 121
Daily Express 105
Daily Mail 219
Daily Mirror 53, 183, 218
Damascus, Syria 231, 281, 311, 344
Damour, Lebanon 238
Dartmoor Prison, Devon 89
Davies, Hunter 209
Dawson’s Field, Jordan 160, 161–2
Deir Yassin massacre, 1948 238
Dergham, Kassem 313
Derry, Northern Ireland: Bloody Sunday, 1972 180; Bogside 161–5, 175, 176, 177, 178–80; Creggan estate 179
Desert life 139, 141
Destruction Business, The (McCullin) 172
Devi, Phulan 261
Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam 81, 87, 109, 111
Dimbleby, Jonathan 234, 235–9; The Palestinians 234–9, 251
Don McCullin in Africa (McCullin) 329, 338
Douad, Abu 237, 238
Druze, the 285
Dubček, Alexander 161
Duma, the 141–2
Duncan, David Douglas 111
Dunn, Peter 92–3
Eagle Operation, Vietnam 85–6
Egypt: war with Israel, 1967 204, 205; see also Alamein, El; Cairo
El Alamein 104, 105–6, 107
El Salvador 3, 264–71, 275, 273, 286
Emery, Fred 120, 278
England: DM’s wartime evacuation in north of 10–11; Homecoming and 242; see also Britain
English, David 219
Eoka terrorists 36
Equatorial Guinea, Republic of 287–8
Erbil, Iraq 312–14, 333, 334
Eritrea 143, 310
Ethiopia; famine in 289, 292; primitive tribes in 328–9, 338
Evans, Harry 95, 123, 204, 208–9, 218, 260, 288, 350, 362
Fairhall, John 187, 188, 189, 193
Fairweather, Catherine (DM’s wife) ix, 327, 328, 329–30, 332, 334, 336, 338, 339–40, 341, 342, 345, 347, 348, 349, 351, 358, 359, 361–2
Fairweather, Maria 327, 332, 339, 345, 358
Fairweather, Natasha 359
Fairweather, Sir Patrick 327, 339, 358
Falkender, Marcia 65–6
Falklands war, 1982 275–9, 285, 343
fashion photography 90, 208, 262, 276, 327, 342, 358
Fatah, El 236, 237
Fay, Stephen 276
Faya-Largeau, Chad 144, 145
fedayeen guerrillas, Jordan 160, 163
Fernando Po 287, 288
Finsbury Park, London 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 47, 52, 64, 66, 68, 89, 97, 148, 220, 327, 341; Blackstock Road cafe 40, 42; The Bunk (Wadcote Street) 17, 24, 27, 43; Fonthill Road 8, 9, 15, 17, 23, 32, 38, 41, 44, 47; Finsbury Park Mosque 341
Fleet Street, London 43, 45, 50, 65, 96, 105, 260, 292
Flynn, Sean 84
Fort-Lamy, Chad 143–5