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McCullin

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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

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and old, almost muskety-looking kind of museum pieces.

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But standing near this group of men was a beautiful dog.

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I thought, "Why is it that these things come to you,

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"when you should be thinking about more serious things?"

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But to be truthful, these little things sometimes tell you

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much more about a story than the obvious things.

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So, I think what I'm getting down to here is,

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we're talking about sensitivity.

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What I had to realise at the time, I was learning a new trade.

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I was learning about the price of humanity and its sufferings.

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-NEWSREEL:

-Now, four months later, the armed forces of both sides

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are still defying the UN's attempts to keep the peace.

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And the Cyprus situation is as dangerous and complex as ever.

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The UN is powerless to do anything

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that would really help restore law and order.

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I saw a whole village trying to evacuate, they were being attacked,

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to somewhere with more safety, like a school building.

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And there was this one old lady, who was lame, and she had two sticks.

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And she really couldn't get those legs moving.

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And there was a British soldier trying to coax her along,

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persuade her to hurry up before she'd probably lose her life.

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And I was with a friend of mine, I said, "This is ridiculous."

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I took one picture of the soldier and the old lady,

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and I put my cameras down.

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And I scooped this old lady up in my arms.

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It was like scooping up some rag doll that had fallen from a child's pram.

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I just ran and ran with her. I don't know why I did it.

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But I didn't really want to see that old lady shot down and killed.

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And I went back to my position as a photographer, and I carried on.

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But it made me feel good.

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I it made me feel as if I wasn't just there as a voyeur

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that was enjoying other people's misery and possible deaths.

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It's a very fine line.

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I've been constantly accused of taking terrible pictures

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and people saying, "Did you ever help anyone?"

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Of course I did. But I don't want to brag about it.

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I did it sometimes to clear my own conscience.

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These little battles were erupting all over

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the northern part of the island of Cyprus, where the Turks lived.

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We saw this soldier looking at the bodies, and I said,

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"What's happening?" He said, "There's been some killing," he said,

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"There's a dead body up there and some more in that house."

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I knocked on the door, I tapped on this door and there was no answer.

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And I let myself in.

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And the first thing I was greeted with was warm blood.

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These men had been murdered the day before,

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and the warm, early morning sunlight had penetrated through

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the glass door of this house.

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And I closed the door and I tiptoed around the room,

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and I got myself in a corner, and I was taking the first shot.

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And suddenly, the door opened and, to my horror, the whole family burst in.

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I thought, my God, they're going to be really cross, finding me in here.

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To my astonishment, they weren't, so I carried on photographing.

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And there was a woman who started screaming like mad.

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And the truth was that it was her husband who was just below my feet,

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who was dead. A new husband at that, they had only been married a week.

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And the Greeks came the day before and attacked this community

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and murdered these people in cold blood in this house.

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I'd go into a village one day, and I got there in the early morning.

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And they were finding bodies of Turkish men

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who were defending the villages.

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And then they were coming back to the village

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and telling women that their husbands had been killed.

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And then you saw these Goya-esque kind of poses

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of people looking up to Christ.

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I've noticed that a lot in wars.

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When people are in deep grief and emotion, they look up

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as if they can see God himself there, offering them some help.

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And you see that in Goya's drawings.

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Before men are being shot or massacred,

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they look up, or they are praying,

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and it's part of that religious nature of the great painters.

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That moment is so classic.

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I call it one of the decisive moments in photography.

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Because it combines the news moments with the compositional elements

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which make a photograph in themselves.

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So, there is something, a second or two would have made a difference.

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I asked Don how he took the picture.

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As I recall it, he actually had to fall to his knees quickly to get it

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because he just sensed it was coming.

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I mean, OK, I talk as if there's a lot of poetry in me.

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There isn't. I'm a photographer. I am neither an artist or a poet.

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I'm a photographer.

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And one of the things I've learned most of all, erm,

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over and above photography,

0:21:100:21:13

the very best qualifications you can have when you are in this situation,

0:21:130:21:17

and you are exercising this duty as a photographer, or whatever, reporter,

0:21:170:21:21

is that it's much better to be on the side of humanity.

0:21:210:21:27

All this was coming at me so fast, this responsibility.

0:21:290:21:33

And I felt, almost from the word go, I got a grip of it,

0:21:330:21:37

and I thought, I understand what I'm doing for the first time.

0:21:370:21:40

I'm meant to be doing this.

0:21:400:21:41

There was a decree put out that journalists were not allowed

0:22:320:22:35

to leave Leopoldville.

0:22:350:22:38

And then I thought, here I am, all this way out here in the Congo

0:22:380:22:41

and now I can't even leave out of the capital.

0:22:410:22:44

So, I had it in mind, and I knew that there were mercenaries

0:22:440:22:47

operating up in a place called Stanleyville.

0:22:470:22:49

I quickly managed to discover all this.

0:22:490:22:51

I've been appointed by Mr Tchombe

0:22:510:22:52

to recruit a number, which I can't disclose,

0:22:520:22:55

of men to form a fighting unit in the Congo,

0:22:550:22:58

to dispel the present rebellion.

0:22:580:23:00

"Mercenary" is a dirty word.

0:23:000:23:02

This unit is going to change the meaning of that word,

0:23:020:23:04

and "mercenary" will now be a badge of honour,

0:23:040:23:08

rather than a dirty word in the English language.

0:23:080:23:11

I met one of these mercenaries, and his name was Alan Murphy.

0:23:110:23:15

And I said, "Could you get me some information about this?"

0:23:150:23:18

And I pumped him for how to get there.

0:23:180:23:20

And he said, what happens was, every morning,

0:23:200:23:23

a C130 American plane, under the CIA,

0:23:230:23:26

would take groups of mercenaries to Stanleyville.

0:23:260:23:31

And I said, "Could you get me one of your shirts and a pair of trousers,

0:23:310:23:34

"and if I sleep overnight in the hotel,

0:23:340:23:36

"would you kick my bed in the morning when you get the call to leave?"

0:23:360:23:39

And he did just that.

0:23:390:23:42

And I see myself now, many, 40 years ago, standing on that runway

0:23:420:23:47

with the early-morning rain shower that had passed.

0:23:470:23:50

And a man with a clipboard, who happened to be a CIA man,

0:23:500:23:53

asking people's names. And I thought, I've had it. I've had it, you know.

0:23:530:23:58

Then he came up to me and he said, "What's your name?"

0:23:580:24:01

And I said, "McCullin." He said, "You're not on the list."

0:24:010:24:04

I said, "I should be," and my legs were like jelly.

0:24:040:24:06

And he said, he wrote my name down, he said, "OK, climb aboard."

0:24:060:24:09

And I'd cracked this amazing no-go situation.

0:24:090:24:13

When I arrived in Stanleyville,

0:25:060:25:08

I could hear a lot of shouting and screaming,

0:25:080:25:10

people crying and gunfire.

0:25:100:25:14

And I saw gangs of boys who had been tied up, and they were being beaten

0:25:140:25:18

and shot in the back of the head and kicked into the river.

0:25:180:25:21

I was looking at all this.

0:25:210:25:22

I had my little camera in my bag, and 20 rolls of film.

0:25:220:25:26

And I thought, how am I going to bring my camera out now

0:25:260:25:29

and declare that I shouldn't be here and I'm not a mercenary?

0:25:290:25:32

Because it was a huge gamble.

0:25:320:25:33

And it was the Congolese gendarmerie who were killing these people,

0:25:390:25:44

torturing them, dragging them behind trucks on wires,

0:25:440:25:47

it was really terrible.

0:25:470:25:49

They were skinned alive, some of them.

0:25:490:25:51

It was a kind of wood yard, and they were sitting in a corner, shivering.

0:25:570:26:00

Knowing that any moment, they would be shot.

0:26:000:26:03

And then they dragged some of these boys out in front of me

0:26:060:26:09

and started brutalising them.

0:26:090:26:11

And I had no power, by the way, to prevent this.

0:26:120:26:15

I took a few pictures and I walked away.

0:26:180:26:20

I thought, you know, you have a moral sense of purpose and duty.

0:26:200:26:25

You have to work out which of those purposes and duty you are there for.

0:26:250:26:30

It's very difficult too.

0:26:300:26:32

You want to take this picture, and you want to stop it.

0:26:320:26:36

And it's a very difficult thing.

0:26:360:26:39

It came up more and more my life,

0:26:390:26:41

seeing people executed in front of me.

0:26:410:26:43

GUNFIRE

0:26:490:26:51

RAPID GUNFIRE

0:26:570:27:00

There was a man called Mike Hoare

0:27:000:27:03

who was battling on the other side of this river, the Lualaba.

0:27:030:27:06

He was in charge of Fifth Commando,

0:27:070:27:10

these mercenaries I had teamed up with.

0:27:100:27:12

So, I arrived on the other side.

0:27:120:27:15

And then, Mike Hoare came to me and said,

0:27:150:27:18

"What are you doing, who are you? Where have you come from?"

0:27:180:27:22

And I said, "I have to be clean with you now,

0:27:220:27:25

"I'm working for the Observer newspaper."

0:27:250:27:27

He wouldn't have understood the German magazine, Quick.

0:27:270:27:30

I immediately fell back on my English heritage.

0:27:300:27:34

So, he said, "I'll deal with you in the morning,

0:27:340:27:36

"I'm going to hand you over to the Congolese military."

0:27:360:27:39

Which one knew right away, that would be curtains.

0:27:390:27:44

He said, "I admire what you have done, but I don't condone it."

0:27:460:27:50

And then he totally switched his whole kind of attitude

0:27:500:27:53

and offered to take me on this journey

0:27:530:27:56

chasing these Simbas who had abducted these nuns.

0:27:560:28:00

And they were cutting them to pieces with machetes on the way down,

0:28:000:28:04

as they were fleeing from us.

0:28:040:28:05

And we caught up with them.

0:28:080:28:10

There was goodness in Mike Hoare,

0:28:220:28:24

but there wasn't much goodness in what he stood for, really.

0:28:240:28:28

He was there for the adventure and the money.

0:28:280:28:31

There was one mercenary Rhodesian and I was sleeping in the same room

0:28:420:28:46

and he had a whole box of stuff and I said, "Where did you get that?"

0:28:460:28:49

He said, "I've just blown the bank in town but there was no money in it, unfortunately."

0:28:490:28:54

Halfway through the night, I heard gunfire

0:28:580:29:00

and I woke up in a great sweat.

0:29:000:29:02

This Rhodesian had got drunk and shot these two African boys,

0:29:020:29:05

who were doing all the laundry and the cooking

0:29:050:29:07

for these mercenaries for breakfast.

0:29:070:29:10

I remember looking at one of these poor black boys,

0:29:100:29:13

he was about 12 years old and his eyes were open.

0:29:130:29:16

And I looked at the mercenary and he said, "They asked for it.

0:29:160:29:19

"I found a weapon on them." Which wasn't true.

0:29:190:29:23

You know, some of these mercenaries,

0:29:240:29:27

they just had a lust for killing Africans.

0:29:270:29:30

HE MOANS

0:29:300:29:32

I hated them in the end.

0:29:320:29:34

GUNSHOT/HE SHOUTS

0:29:350:29:37

When I came away from these atrocities, I kept thinking,

0:29:420:29:45

"How am I going to get through this?"

0:29:450:29:47

I love what I'm doing, I love photography but, you know,

0:29:470:29:50

this other stuff is really too awful to live with, you know.

0:29:500:29:54

And sometimes people used to say to me, "Do you have nightmares?"

0:29:540:29:57

I would say, "No.

0:29:570:29:59

"Only in the daytime, when my eyes are open and I'm awake

0:29:590:30:03

"and my memory is, you know, on full alert."

0:30:030:30:06

So when I see... I love photography,

0:30:060:30:11

I love being in my darkroom, but even my darkroom is a haunted place.

0:30:110:30:15

I go in there with the red light and it's like being in a womb

0:30:150:30:19

and I play that music, which is only classical music,

0:30:190:30:23

it somehow pleases me, but at the same moment,

0:30:230:30:28

it takes me down and down and down to where I don't want to go.

0:30:280:30:31

It's like as if I'm drowning in a very deep ocean...

0:30:310:30:34

..and I'm trying to get back to the top again to see the daylight.

0:30:350:30:38

So, you know, I don't just take photographs. I think.

0:30:380:30:42

CLASSICAL MUSIC

0:30:420:30:44

I would come back to Finsbury Park,

0:31:100:31:12

because unfortunately,

0:31:120:31:14

I was still living in quite poor circumstances with my new wife.

0:31:140:31:18

And then, when there were odd days when I had nothing to do,

0:31:180:31:22

I would go to the Wimpy bar and hang out with the same tribe, you know.

0:31:220:31:26

And then they would say, "Where have you been lately?"

0:31:260:31:30

I'd say, "I've been to the Congo with the mercenaries."

0:31:300:31:33

And they would try to humour me...

0:31:330:31:35

..but basically, they were almost putting me down,

0:31:370:31:39

as if I was living in a Walter Mitty world.

0:31:390:31:42

I did about four and a half years on the Observer

0:31:480:31:51

and things were beginning to slow down for me and I could also...

0:31:510:31:55

I started getting the taste and the need

0:31:550:31:58

to do much bigger, you know, international stories.

0:31:580:32:01

And a friend of mine called David King,

0:32:020:32:06

who worked at the Sunday Times, said to me,

0:32:060:32:11

"Why don't you come and join us?

0:32:110:32:12

"Why don't you come and do some work for us? I'll give you work."

0:32:120:32:15

So I did and he sent me off to the Mississippi.

0:32:150:32:18

BLUES MUSIC

0:32:180:32:20

It was an amazing part of the world, the Mississippi.

0:32:310:32:35

They had the sharecroppers,

0:32:350:32:37

the black people who brought in the cotton,

0:32:370:32:39

living in shacks and sheds, and then you had New Orleans,

0:32:390:32:44

where we basically, we arrived in New Orleans and it was amazing to see.

0:32:440:32:50

And there was a Ku Klux Klan rally one night.

0:33:040:33:08

It was like Hollywood.

0:33:080:33:10

There was the big fire cross burning,

0:33:100:33:12

these rather hateful people in these ridiculous kind of outfits,

0:33:120:33:15

smoking huge cigars and basically

0:33:150:33:17

saying, "Welcome," but, you know, at the same time intimidating us.

0:33:170:33:24

I managed to, you know, get a few pictures, which David King,

0:33:260:33:29

when I came back, put together.

0:33:290:33:32

You know, you can take amazing pictures,

0:33:320:33:35

but you still need to have them presented

0:33:350:33:37

in a way that the public can accept them and understand them.

0:33:370:33:41

That was my first assignment for the Sunday Times.

0:33:420:33:45

Roy Thompson was not a journalist himself,

0:34:020:34:05

but he was the best friend journalism ever had.

0:34:050:34:09

He was very proud of his newspapers

0:34:090:34:12

and he was so proud of their independence,

0:34:120:34:14

he had a card printed which he carried in his pocket.

0:34:140:34:18

So when Roy Thompson was attacked,

0:34:180:34:21

"Why are you papers publishing this?"

0:34:210:34:22

or, "Why are you putting these war photographs in the colour magazine?

0:34:220:34:25

"We advertisers don't like it."

0:34:250:34:28

He would pause and take out of his pocket a little card

0:34:280:34:31

and it said, it was a kind of oath he'd made, you know,

0:34:310:34:35

"The newspapers that I control will always be independent

0:34:350:34:40

"and will run professionally and I do not interfere in them."

0:34:400:34:44

So he would put the card back in his pocket and would say,

0:34:440:34:47

"You wouldn't expect me to go against my own word, would you?"

0:34:470:34:51

I was very privileged because I worked on the colour magazine,

0:34:510:34:54

which was directly associated with the Sunday Times newspaper.

0:34:540:34:59

And I had equally wonderful people there

0:34:590:35:02

who allowed me to just disappear and come back several weeks later

0:35:020:35:07

and on top of all that, allow me to edit my own material.

0:35:070:35:10

He knew he had the confidence that if he did his part

0:35:100:35:14

and took his photographs and reported with integrity

0:35:140:35:18

and accuracy and with a sense of composition,

0:35:180:35:21

that it wasn't going to be interfered with

0:35:210:35:24

or rejected because of some other concerns.

0:35:240:35:27

He trusted me and so it meant that I would try that much harder

0:35:270:35:32

for people who gave me this wonderful freedom.

0:35:320:35:34

So Roy Thomson, backing his editors,

0:35:340:35:38

was crucial to the career of Don McCullin.

0:35:380:35:41

MUSIC: "Tin Soldier" by The Small Faces

0:35:410:35:43

The '60s were packed with opportunities

0:35:580:36:00

if you wanted to go to war.

0:36:000:36:02

# I am a little tin soldier that wants to jump into your fire... #

0:36:060:36:12

Israeli soldiers, fresh from street fighting,

0:36:170:36:19

snapped one another at the Wailing Wall.

0:36:190:36:21

Pictures for girlfriends, or people from Tel Aviv.

0:36:210:36:24

# All I need is treat me like a man

0:36:250:36:29

# Cos I ain't no child... #

0:36:290:36:31

If they think that I've come back happy,

0:36:310:36:33

they know that I've got something ghastly to show.

0:36:330:36:37

And if I've got something ghastly to show,

0:36:380:36:40

it means that I'm trying to get the message over to people

0:36:400:36:43

that even though I like being in a war and I like being there

0:36:430:36:47

because it's a great adventure for me,

0:36:470:36:49

my duty is to be there for a reason, not just to have a bloody good time.

0:36:490:36:53

I covered the battle of the citadel of Hue,

0:36:530:36:56

which was the biggest battle I'd ever been in.

0:36:560:36:58

I mean, I wouldn't like to go through a year without being in a war.

0:36:580:37:01

And it went on for two weeks

0:37:010:37:03

and that was really the beginning of real madness.

0:37:030:37:08

I'm getting a bit bad, really,

0:37:080:37:10

because I'm looking forward to doing two wars a year

0:37:100:37:13

and if I start looking forward to doing two or even more a year,

0:37:130:37:16

I'm not going to survive.

0:37:160:37:18

CLASSICAL MUSIC

0:37:220:37:24

GUNFIRE

0:37:250:37:27

Sleeping next to dead bodies.

0:38:020:38:04

Looking at men who had been run over by tanks

0:38:040:38:07

and looked like Persian carpets in the road.

0:38:070:38:10

People with their brains hanging out.

0:38:100:38:13

Living under tables and sleeping in rat-infested rooms.

0:38:140:38:18

It was like, basically, going into total madness and insanity.

0:38:190:38:23

I stood for two weeks in that battle,

0:38:250:38:28

watching dozens and dozens of American soldiers being killed

0:38:280:38:31

and wounded and being dragged towards me.

0:38:310:38:33

They looked as if they'd been taken from a butcher's shop, with blood everywhere.

0:38:330:38:37

In the end, I became totally mad, free,

0:38:370:38:41

running around like a tormented animal.

0:38:410:38:43

CLASSICAL MUSIC

0:38:430:38:45

I've got to make sure that when they look at my pictures,

0:38:510:38:54

if it's on a Sunday morning after breakfast,

0:38:540:38:57

that it's going to hit them hard.

0:38:570:38:59

The very first man I saw in that Battle of Hue

0:39:110:39:14

had been hit in the face with two bullets.

0:39:140:39:17

And he had a bandage around him.

0:39:170:39:19

It looked like a child who had his porridge dripping down his face,

0:39:190:39:24

through this bandage, but in fact it was blood and not porridge.

0:39:240:39:27

Big, gooey chunks of human gore, just coming out of his face.

0:39:270:39:32

I put my camera up to my face

0:39:320:39:35

and he tried to move his head, this soldier,

0:39:350:39:38

but his eyes were screaming at me not to photograph him,

0:39:380:39:41

so I took my camera and went somewhere else.

0:39:410:39:44

There was no shortage of, you know, human flesh to photograph that day.

0:39:440:39:48

Our most vivid memory of the battle

0:39:550:39:57

was that it was one of the most intense battles of the Vietnam War.

0:39:570:40:02

Don came in and joined us and he just kind of showed up,

0:40:040:40:09

but what was unique about Don is that the other correspondents

0:40:090:40:14

and photographers would show up and, what I would say, snap and go.

0:40:140:40:19

They would take their pictures and then be out of there.

0:40:190:40:22

Don, for whatever the reason, decided to join with us,

0:40:220:40:26

stay with us and for several days, he became one of us.

0:40:260:40:31

On one occasion, on more than one occasion,

0:40:320:40:34

went out at great risk to himself

0:40:340:40:38

to assist with bringing some of our wounded casualties back

0:40:380:40:43

to where we could evacuate them.

0:40:430:40:45

His classic photo of the shell-shocked Marine

0:40:470:40:51

is a Delta Company Marine.

0:40:510:40:55

I dropped on my knees and photographed this man.

0:40:550:40:59

I shot five frames, each one singularly.

0:40:590:41:03

One, two, three, four, five.

0:41:030:41:06

There is not one blink of an eyelid. There's not one change.

0:41:080:41:11

All those negatives are exactly the same.

0:41:110:41:14

I have kept up with a sizeable number

0:41:150:41:18

of the Marines from Delta Company.

0:41:180:41:20

We get together periodically and that individual has not surfaced,

0:41:200:41:26

so I don't know his history from that day on.

0:41:260:41:30

PIANO MUSIC

0:41:350:41:37

DISTANT GUNFIRE

0:41:480:41:50

I photographed this giant American

0:42:020:42:04

who looked like an athlete, but he was throwing a hand grenade.

0:42:040:42:08

Within seconds, this sniper hit this soldier in the hand

0:42:080:42:12

and he had a hand like a cauliflower.

0:42:120:42:15

It was all busted and bursting open.

0:42:150:42:17

The picture itself almost defeats the anti-war feeling

0:42:190:42:23

that I was trying to put across,

0:42:230:42:26

because he looks the picture of manhood,

0:42:260:42:28

like a javelin thrower at an Olympic event.

0:42:280:42:30

Instead of that,

0:42:300:42:32

he was throwing a hand grenade which was meant to bring death to others.

0:42:320:42:37

DISTANT GUNFIRE

0:42:390:42:41

The one meaningful picture I took in that battle

0:42:550:42:58

was a man who had been hit in both legs, an American Marine.

0:42:580:43:03

He was being supported by two friends

0:43:030:43:05

and if ever I thought, at the very moment in my atheistic kind of mind,

0:43:050:43:10

that I was looking at something purely religious, was of this man,

0:43:100:43:14

who looked like Jesus Christ being taken down from the cross.

0:43:140:43:18

When it was over, about 50% of the Marines were casualties.

0:43:260:43:31

In my own case, I went in with a company of 120 Marines

0:43:330:43:38

and sailors and at the end of the battle,

0:43:380:43:41

there were 39 of us that were still standing.

0:43:410:43:44

So you can see from just those shots how chaotic it was.

0:43:470:43:54

After two weeks, I got back to the press centre in Da Nang

0:43:580:44:02

and I realised I hadn't taken my clothes off, my underwear,

0:44:020:44:05

anything off for two weeks.

0:44:050:44:07

And, you know, I had a beard and I was haunted-looking.

0:44:080:44:11

I took those clothes off and threw them straight into the waste bin,

0:44:110:44:14

my underwear and everything I stood in, and had a shower.

0:44:140:44:17

I think I could have easily broke down in that shower and cried,

0:44:200:44:24

you know, I was so...

0:44:240:44:27

..so drained and used and crushed by two weeks of seeing people dying.

0:44:270:44:33

And you know, I think what I'm trying to say here is trying to be honest.

0:44:340:44:39

You know, photography suddenly didn't come into the picture, even.

0:44:390:44:44

It had nothing to do with photography.

0:44:440:44:47

After a while, if you are that involved in that kind of situation,

0:44:470:44:52

it's not about photography, it's about humanity.

0:44:520:44:55

Still photographs do have this strong affinity

0:44:550:44:58

with the way we remember, so...

0:44:580:45:01

And the vibrations of a still photograph can be intense

0:45:010:45:05

and can last for ever.

0:45:050:45:07

I can remember that Don sometimes worries,

0:45:080:45:12

I know, about, "Have I taken these risks? Is it worthwhile?"

0:45:120:45:18

I can tell him it is

0:45:180:45:20

because nobody can trace...it's like throwing a stone in a pond.

0:45:200:45:25

The ripples go out and you can't say,

0:45:250:45:27

"This ripple was caused by this stone," but they are.

0:45:270:45:31

And I think the disenchantment with the Vietnam War in America

0:45:310:45:34

is powerfully reinforced by some of the photographers,

0:45:340:45:37

American photographers, including Don McCullin.

0:45:370:45:42

Photography is the truth if it is being handled by a truthful person

0:45:420:45:48

and I have to tell you that I have a lot of integrity.

0:45:480:45:51

I would never tell a lie.

0:45:510:45:53

I would never try to recreate something that wasn't real.

0:45:530:45:57

I did a picture once where I did recreate something.

0:45:570:46:00

It was the only time I ever did it,

0:46:000:46:03

but I saw some Americans looting the body of a dead soldier,

0:46:030:46:07

looking for souvenirs and mocking the body, mocking the person.

0:46:070:46:11

And when they went away,

0:46:110:46:13

having rifled all through his personal things,

0:46:130:46:15

I brought them together and made a kind of montage

0:46:150:46:18

of this pathetic possessions of this North Vietnamese soldier.

0:46:180:46:22

It's the only time I've ever done it,

0:46:230:46:25

but I thought I would make a statement for this soldier.

0:46:250:46:28

I have no shame about doing that.

0:46:280:46:30

I have this picture and I think it says what I was trying to make it say, that, you know,

0:46:320:46:36

"Hear me. I am just a victim of war."

0:46:360:46:41

I was trying to say this about this young man.

0:46:410:46:44

We had total freedom in Vietnam.

0:46:490:46:52

That, of course, made the Americans feel,

0:46:520:46:56

when the war finally came to an end,

0:46:560:46:59

that it was the media that let them down.

0:46:590:47:02

They felt a bit upset about that, because they had given us

0:47:020:47:06

every facility and all they got in exchange was, you know,

0:47:060:47:09

that public opinion turned against the war in Vietnam.

0:47:090:47:14

So if you go to Afghanistan now, you are totally controlled.

0:47:150:47:20

They are never going to be allowed to take the kind of photographs

0:47:200:47:23

I did in Vietnam of the real thing, the battle, the price of war

0:47:230:47:29

and the suffering and loss, so the whole rulebook has been rewritten.

0:47:290:47:36

And it doesn't come out in our favour.

0:47:360:47:39

You just said it's a rotten job

0:47:440:47:46

and yet you have, in fact, sought it out.

0:47:460:47:49

You've sought out war and famine and misery

0:47:490:47:52

in all the time I've known you, which has been a long, long time.

0:47:520:47:55

Yes, I did it because I thought it was just going to be soldiers,

0:47:550:47:58

and then when I got to war,

0:47:580:47:59

I thought it was amazingly exciting to lay under

0:47:590:48:02

a barrage of shells dropping on me, or a sniper trying to get me.

0:48:020:48:05

I thought, you know, that was a challenge,

0:48:050:48:07

and I have swum around with many dead bodies in canals

0:48:070:48:10

to get by them when the sniper is working a ridge for me.

0:48:100:48:13

I felt I wanted to put my fingers up and say, "You missed it, mate."

0:48:130:48:17

And, you know, I had a very cocky attitude about warfare,

0:48:170:48:20

but then I started coming in contact with the real victims

0:48:200:48:25

and they are always the poor people who are not informed.

0:48:250:48:27

They don't have the Mercedes-Benz to get away.

0:48:270:48:30

They don't have the communication or the money to move off quick.

0:48:300:48:33

They are always the very poorest people who get clobbered.

0:48:330:48:37

And the amazing thing is that is where I started in my life,

0:48:370:48:40

living with poor people,

0:48:400:48:42

and when I am with them in those circumstances,

0:48:420:48:45

I have a very close affinity and understanding of what their lot is.

0:48:450:48:49

# I presume you never noticed

0:48:510:48:55

# How much I really cared... #

0:48:570:49:02

You are friends, aren't you?

0:49:020:49:03

-You are buddies, aren't you?

-Well, we're all buddies.

0:49:030:49:07

Can you look where my elbow is?

0:49:100:49:12

I want to see your face, if you don't mind. That's fine.

0:49:120:49:16

You're OK, aren't you? You don't mind? You don't mind me?

0:49:160:49:20

I'm not bullying you around, am I? OK, thanks.

0:49:200:49:24

I don't want to take liberties, you know.

0:49:240:49:26

I could have spent the rest of my life working

0:49:350:49:37

in Aldgate and Whitechapel, it's all there.

0:49:370:49:40

Photographically, it's all there.

0:49:400:49:43

It is a totally, what do they call it...

0:49:440:49:47

..Hogarthian kind of experience, when you are doing these pictures.

0:49:500:49:55

PIANO MUSIC

0:49:570:49:59

This is one of my favourite pictures and I've never,

0:50:080:50:10

ever printed it before.

0:50:100:50:12

Look at these men's hands.

0:50:120:50:14

They are all standing up asleep, these men.

0:50:140:50:17

These people used to try and put the dead eye on you.

0:50:290:50:32

By that, they would try to stare you out.

0:50:320:50:34

You must never flinch away like that. You must stare them out.

0:50:340:50:38

This is a woman called Jean.

0:50:410:50:43

She used to hang out under the arches of Liverpool Street Station.

0:50:430:50:47

She used to curtsey when I went up.

0:50:480:50:50

She used to say, "Hello, Captain Mark."

0:50:500:50:52

I said, "Why do you keep calling me Captain Mark?"

0:50:520:50:55

And she said, "Because you look like Captain Mark Phillips."

0:50:550:50:58

She said, "Would you like some tea?"

0:50:580:51:00

And I said, "You haven't got any milk."

0:51:000:51:02

She said, "I can always get it outside of people's front doors."

0:51:020:51:05

I loved her.

0:51:050:51:08

In fact, what I did, I found her somewhere to live.

0:51:080:51:10

This is a picture I really like.

0:51:130:51:15

It's like a fallen woman from the turn of the century.

0:51:150:51:18

I did this in Chapel Market on Sunday morning when I was very young.

0:51:180:51:23

She's been a posh woman, this woman.

0:51:230:51:25

You can tell by the handbag, tell by the clothes.

0:51:250:51:28

They're all young, now. They are not old people like this.

0:51:320:51:36

I think one of the best portraits I ever did

0:51:420:51:44

was this man in Spitalfields Market.

0:51:440:51:46

He was actually lying by the embers of an all-night fire

0:51:460:51:49

that these homeless men used to congregate around.

0:51:490:51:52

He sat up and looked at me full-face.

0:51:520:51:55

I just held his stare and I just brought my Nikon camera up

0:51:550:51:58

to my eye and took this picture and he never moved an eyelid.

0:51:580:52:01

I was looking at the bluest eyes you've ever seen

0:52:010:52:04

and his hair was matted.

0:52:040:52:06

I felt as if I was looking at one of those Neptune images

0:52:060:52:10

of a man under the sea, you know, with a trident.

0:52:100:52:14

It was quite extraordinary.

0:52:140:52:16

So pleased with the picture.

0:52:180:52:20

MUSIC: "Blue Peter Theme"

0:52:240:52:27

This year it's a matter of life and death.

0:52:270:52:30

GUNSHOT

0:52:300:52:32

There has been a war going on in West Africa for two years now.

0:52:320:52:35

It's a civil war between the Biafrans and the Nigerians.

0:52:350:52:38

We're not going to say which side is right or which side is wrong,

0:52:380:52:43

except that all war is always wrong.

0:52:430:52:46

I went two or three times.

0:53:120:53:14

Aeroplanes that used to take in aid

0:53:140:53:17

used to land on an extended road, which was their airstrip.

0:53:170:53:21

It was called Uli Airstrip and you went at night

0:53:210:53:24

and the Federal Government had hired,

0:53:240:53:26

you know, Russian pilots and foreign pilots

0:53:260:53:29

to try and shoot these planes down.

0:53:290:53:31

This one is flying the other side of the mission church,

0:53:310:53:34

sweeping to the right.

0:53:340:53:35

Streaking the ground as they move,

0:53:350:53:38

dropping incendiary bombs and fragmentation bombs

0:53:380:53:40

in the places around here.

0:53:400:53:42

So, going in to Uli Airstrip at night was a very hairy experience.

0:53:440:53:49

There are crews out there willing to fly, despite the lack of permission

0:53:490:53:54

and we will just try and fly in.

0:53:540:53:57

-But you stand a good chance of being shot down?

-I don't think so, no.

0:53:570:54:00

They seem to have been fairly trigger-happy in the past, though.

0:54:020:54:05

Anyway, we are going to try and let us see.

0:54:050:54:08

Ms Ryder, why are you going as well?

0:54:080:54:11

Well, because one feels very concerned, clearly,

0:54:120:54:16

with anyone who is suffering any distress anywhere

0:54:160:54:20

and partly because one has seen a situation in Europe,

0:54:200:54:25

in the past, perhaps similar to this.

0:54:250:54:29

PIANO MUSIC

0:54:290:54:32

I walked into a camp which was actually an old school building

0:54:510:54:54

and there were 800 dying children, standing there, waiting for me.

0:54:540:54:58

You know, when you go into a camp with 800 dying children,

0:55:010:55:04

some of whom are actually dropping down and dying in front of me,

0:55:040:55:08

they think you're coming with some form of salvation.

0:55:080:55:12

They don't realise you're coming to take pictures and get information.

0:55:120:55:16

That's not what they want. You know, they want food.

0:55:160:55:20

I saw this particular boy that haunts me to this day.

0:55:350:55:39

He was an albino boy and he was standing, looking at me.

0:55:390:55:41

Barely managing to stand on his spindly legs.

0:55:410:55:44

When you're an albino in Africa,

0:55:440:55:47

you're singled out all the time for bullying and God knows what.

0:55:470:55:50

He was clutching a French corned beef tin,

0:55:500:55:53

some previous aid gift which he'd licked the interior completely dry.

0:55:530:55:57

And I thought, "I can't look at this boy." It was too much.

0:55:570:56:00

He was staring at me, so I went somewhere else

0:56:000:56:03

and spoke to a doctor, cos another child had collapsed

0:56:030:56:07

and was dying and suddenly, somebody touched my hand

0:56:070:56:10

and I looked down and it was the albino boy, he was holding my hand.

0:56:100:56:14

And I thought, "Why are you doing this to me?"

0:56:140:56:16

It was like he'd honed in on me and he was really paining me,

0:56:160:56:20

making me feel so ashamed.

0:56:200:56:23

So I gave him a barley sugar from my pocket and he went away

0:56:230:56:26

and he stood at a distance, licking this barley sugar.

0:56:260:56:30

There were children of two years old,

0:56:300:56:33

crawling around on their stomachs with their anus hanging out.

0:56:330:56:37

I've never seen anything so terrible in all my life,

0:56:370:56:41

the inside of their whole backside

0:56:410:56:44

had kind of invertedly kind of suddenly fell out

0:56:440:56:48

and they were dragging themselves around

0:56:480:56:51

with this inside-out situation of their bottoms,

0:56:510:56:53

with flies hanging on as they crawled.

0:56:530:56:56

I thought, this was worse than any inferno of insanity

0:56:560:57:00

that you could ever experience or see in your life.

0:57:000:57:03

It wasn't real, it was so horrible, so shocking.

0:57:030:57:06

And, you know, I almost become, well, I almost became paralysed.

0:57:070:57:12

I was so shocked.

0:57:120:57:14

I thought, "Take your mind off it. Take some pictures."

0:57:140:57:18

They said, "There's a girl you must see."

0:57:180:57:21

They said, "Her name is Patience."

0:57:210:57:24

They brought her in and she was completely naked.

0:57:240:57:27

She was 16 years of age,

0:57:270:57:29

days, if not one or two days, away from death.

0:57:290:57:32

And I thought, "How am I going to do this?"

0:57:320:57:34

And they sat her down and I asked the nurse

0:57:340:57:39

if she would place her hands over the lower part of her body,

0:57:390:57:44

cos I thought, you know,

0:57:440:57:46

"If I'm going to do this picture

0:57:460:57:47

"to show this terrible, shocking creature,

0:57:470:57:49

"I'm going to do it with as much dignity as I can rustle up

0:57:490:57:53

"and at least not take advantage of her nakedness."

0:57:530:57:56

You've never seen a more dignified person, you know,

0:58:020:58:05

you know, inches away from death.

0:58:050:58:07

PIANO MUSIC

0:58:080:58:11

And I remember one day seeing a woman trying to feed a child at the breast.

0:58:170:58:22

There was nothing for the child at the breast.

0:58:220:58:26

And I saw some writing at the back, in the far distance.

0:58:260:58:29

And after I'd photographed the woman, who, believe it or not,

0:58:290:58:33

was only 24 years of age and she looked like 65,

0:58:330:58:36

I went and read the writing in the far distance on the wall

0:58:360:58:39

and it had on the wall, "Today I am reborn."

0:58:390:58:43

And that little inscription took my legs away from me.

0:58:470:58:53

You know, you can go through so much as a photographer,

0:58:530:58:55

you put yourself there.

0:58:550:58:58

You don't ask, you know, you don't ask why you are there.

0:58:580:59:01

You go there and the same time you put yourself there.

0:59:010:59:04

You could refuse if you want.

0:59:040:59:06

I went there, but when I went there, I photographed these people

0:59:060:59:09

to show they had more dignity than most of us will ever dream of,

0:59:090:59:14

that being in the last throes of their life.

0:59:140:59:16

His awareness of the futility of it,

0:59:280:59:32

as well as the direct sight of these people dying on their feet...

0:59:320:59:39

..moved him enormously.

0:59:410:59:43

He always had empathy, of course,

0:59:430:59:45

with the soldier who was shot, but here he was looking at civilians.

0:59:450:59:49

Men and women without any clue about what was going on,

0:59:490:59:53

dying because of the ambitions

0:59:530:59:55

of some of the power-hungry people in the country.

0:59:550:59:58

MUSIC: "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

1:00:001:00:04

# If I leave here tomorrow

1:00:181:00:24

# Would you still remember me?

1:00:261:00:29

# I must be travelling on now... #

1:00:331:00:39

I spent my whole life travelling the world. I was really on the move.

1:00:401:00:44

You know, I was constantly at London Airport

1:00:511:00:54

and waving goodbye to my little family.

1:00:541:00:57

# And this bird shall never change... #

1:00:581:01:01

I was very eager, as always,

1:01:091:01:11

and ambitious to get to the front of the fighting.

1:01:111:01:14

And the next thing I know,

1:01:141:01:16

we walked into an ambush and all hell broke loose.

1:01:161:01:18

GUNFIRE

1:01:181:01:20

There was tremendous, heavy AK-47 fire.

1:01:201:01:25

And I immediately ran down into the side of the road,

1:01:251:01:28

which is like a culvert.

1:01:281:01:30

And I thought, "I'm going to get my tail out of here."

1:01:341:01:37

Because, you know, what does one picture mean of a soldier under fire

1:01:371:01:40

if it's going to cost you your life?

1:01:401:01:42

For the first time, my nerve went.

1:01:421:01:45

I knelt behind a tube and there was an almighty explosion.

1:01:451:01:47

I was blown across the road.

1:01:471:01:49

I felt this terrible burning sensation in my legs

1:01:491:01:52

and everywhere from the waist downwards.

1:01:521:01:54

And all my past seemed to come before me and I thought, "This is it. I'm going to die."

1:01:541:01:58

So I crawled away for about 200 yards,

1:01:581:02:01

only to be put on the back of a truck,

1:02:011:02:03

having been stabbed with a morphine injection.

1:02:031:02:05

And then they filled the lorry up

1:02:051:02:07

with about half a dozen soldiers who were wounded.

1:02:071:02:10

I thought, "I'm going to take my mind off my own pain

1:02:101:02:13

"and I'm going to photograph what's going on in this truck."

1:02:131:02:16

They put the man on the truck right next to me

1:02:171:02:20

who took the full brunt of the mortar bomb that hit me,

1:02:201:02:23

but he got, unfortunately, all of it in his chest and stomach.

1:02:231:02:26

And he kept sitting up and trying to fight people holding him down.

1:02:261:02:30

He was fighting.

1:02:301:02:32

And he died on the way back in the truck to the hospital,

1:02:321:02:35

because I sat up and photographed him.

1:02:351:02:37

And I said, "I don't want you to take any more risks."

1:02:371:02:41

They took the risks as they judged fit

1:02:411:02:44

because they were independently-minded.

1:02:441:02:47

And I secretly rejoiced that they brought back what they did,

1:02:471:02:50

but nonetheless, the next time and the next time

1:02:501:02:54

and the next time, you thought,

1:02:541:02:56

"Pray to God that they are not playing Russian roulette with their own lives."

1:02:561:03:01

LOUD EXPLOSION

1:03:081:03:10

It was strange for me to get on an aeroplane and fly to Belfast,

1:03:141:03:18

drive to Londonderry, check into the hotel.

1:03:181:03:22

And you could guarantee that once the pubs turned out

1:03:231:03:25

at about 3-something in the afternoon,

1:03:251:03:27

that there you braced yourself

1:03:271:03:29

and you knew exactly where it would be.

1:03:291:03:31

It was almost like a football match. You knew where the action would be.

1:03:311:03:35

SHOUTING AND SCREAMING

1:03:351:03:37

It was bricks and bottles and stones

1:03:371:03:40

coming at the soldiers, who then fired rubber bullets

1:03:401:03:43

and CS gas back, and I used to be gassed on a regular basis.

1:03:431:03:48

But from a photographer's point of view, you couldn't miss.

1:03:481:03:51

It was like a theatre, really. It was like a play.

1:04:011:04:04

You knew the plot, you'd seen it many times before.

1:04:041:04:08

This particular day, I knew they were going to charge

1:04:291:04:33

and I was standing there with my short telephoto lens

1:04:331:04:36

and I took this picture of the "let's go and get them".

1:04:361:04:39

I wasn't totally aware that in the shop doorway by this taxi company

1:04:411:04:45

was a woman standing there, holding her mouth with total shock.

1:04:451:04:49

That made my picture much more poignant, really.

1:04:511:04:54

I came upon this highway

1:05:221:05:24

and saw these dying soldiers in the road, and I was with a very

1:05:241:05:28

nice friend of mine called Michael Nicholson, who was an ITV reporter.

1:05:281:05:32

Their wounds were kind of melting into the tar itself on the road.

1:05:321:05:36

So hot.

1:05:361:05:38

We prised them off the road and we draped them

1:05:381:05:41

across the bonnet of his Jeep.

1:05:411:05:44

And I stood on the front of it and kind of leaned on them

1:05:441:05:46

and we drove them back to a first aid medical centre for the army.

1:05:461:05:51

And we went back the next morning to see how they were, but they had died.

1:05:511:05:55

And I did lots of pictures of men coming in on that road

1:06:031:06:07

with pieces of cardboard around their feet,

1:06:071:06:09

because they threw their boots away

1:06:091:06:12

and, of course, they didn't last long on that road.

1:06:121:06:14

The whole thing was the most appalling shambles.

1:06:171:06:20

It was like the retreat from Moscow. Terrible disarray.

1:06:201:06:23

And so, when the Sunday Times published these pictures,

1:06:261:06:29

the South Vietnamese Government put me on a blacklist,

1:06:291:06:33

which I never thought for one minute existed.

1:06:331:06:35

I was building this reputation as a war photographer,

1:06:391:06:42

which today I really detest.

1:06:421:06:44

I worked for it and then,

1:06:441:06:46

when I suddenly felt that I was being acclaimed as a war photographer,

1:06:461:06:50

suddenly I felt uncomfortable and dirty.

1:06:501:06:53

I felt being called a war photographer

1:06:531:06:55

was like being called a mercenary.

1:06:551:06:57

Looking back on all that, I thought my family suffered very badly.

1:07:081:07:12

I was always waving goodbye to them and one wonders in their mind,

1:07:121:07:15

were they ever thinking, "Will we ever see this strange man again,

1:07:151:07:19

"who is supposed to be our father?"

1:07:191:07:21

But, you know, I didn't want to weaken my strength

1:07:231:07:26

by thinking in a sentimental way.

1:07:261:07:29

I wanted to do my job and then hopefully go home to them,

1:07:291:07:33

but it was very selfish, now I look back on it.

1:07:331:07:36

And it eventually ruined by marriage.

1:07:361:07:38

GUNFIRE

1:08:091:08:11

In Beirut's Christian stronghold,

1:08:131:08:16

Phalangist militiamen poured fire on neighbouring areas

1:08:161:08:21

held by Muslim leftists

1:08:211:08:23

and allies from the more extreme Palestinian guerrilla group.

1:08:231:08:26

Every day you had a twist in the Lebanon.

1:08:261:08:29

There is always something ghastly and new to kind of look at.

1:08:291:08:34

I did this photograph of all these Christians,

1:08:341:08:37

all proudly showing their manly side to them.

1:08:371:08:40

And the audacity was that they were wearing Christian crosses

1:08:411:08:46

and, you know, you think...

1:08:461:08:48

you expect more from Christianity

1:08:481:08:52

if you're displaying it in such a way than some of the terrible things

1:08:521:08:55

that they did in the name of Christianity.

1:08:551:08:58

On the political front, the situation still appears to be stalemate.

1:08:581:09:02

Efforts to implement a ceasefire clearly having failed

1:09:021:09:05

and parliament's attempts to hold a session...

1:09:051:09:08

The Palestinian areas, the kind of east side of Beirut,

1:09:081:09:12

right inside the Christian heartland.

1:09:121:09:16

And it was just, it was murder from the word go.

1:09:171:09:23

MUSIC

1:09:231:09:25

They started, you know, collecting prisoners.

1:09:291:09:33

It all happened so quickly.

1:09:331:09:34

I went to a house where I could hear a lot of women and children screaming.

1:09:361:09:40

A Christian was bringing the women and children down

1:09:401:09:42

the side of this stairwell and I could see two Palestinian young men

1:09:421:09:47

with their hands up, in the left-hand side of the stairwell.

1:09:471:09:51

The moment the women went out of the house,

1:09:531:09:57

the man next to me, and I was very close, you know,

1:09:571:10:00

very close, started opening up and killing these people in cold blood, immediately.

1:10:001:10:04

And they went down in a hail of bullets and blood, all up the wall.

1:10:041:10:08

And I went round the back of the stairwell, another stairwell,

1:10:101:10:13

and try to get a grip of myself, cos I was so shocked.

1:10:131:10:16

I couldn't believe what I had just seen.

1:10:161:10:18

I came out of the building

1:10:191:10:21

and there was another Christian gunman who had the women and children

1:10:211:10:24

and he said, "By the way, if I see you taking any pictures,

1:10:241:10:27

"I am going to kill you myself. Get out of here."

1:10:271:10:30

Everywhere I went that day,

1:10:331:10:35

I could see another person being murdered in front of me.

1:10:351:10:38

Of course, what I did eventually was get the picture of the man

1:10:381:10:42

playing the lute over the dead Palestinian girl's body.

1:10:421:10:45

They were so angry about it when it was published that they said

1:10:491:10:53

if they ever caught the man who took the picture, they would kill him.

1:10:531:10:57

In a way, it was almost an honour

1:11:021:11:04

that they wanted to kill me for taking the picture.

1:11:041:11:06

The 26-storey Holiday Inn is burning.

1:11:111:11:13

The third of a trio of five-star hotels

1:11:131:11:16

to be caught in the firing line.

1:11:161:11:18

This is the courtyard of the Hilton Hotel

1:11:181:11:20

and it was here that the fighting took place all last night.

1:11:201:11:24

When the Islamics overwhelmed part of the Christian area where I was,

1:11:241:11:31

they were actually ensconced in the Hilton Hotel and when they got in,

1:11:311:11:36

the Christians that they'd captured in there,

1:11:361:11:38

they took them to the top floor and they mutilated them

1:11:381:11:41

in a manly sense, by cutting off part of them, and they threw them,

1:11:411:11:46

alive, off the top of the building.

1:11:461:11:48

When it gets down to that kind of hatred,

1:11:501:11:53

it becomes a form of insanity.

1:11:531:11:56

It goes beyond your understanding of anything. Anything.

1:11:561:12:01

I don't know how he did it. He had a very sensitive conscience.

1:12:091:12:13

I would often call him "the conscience with a camera".

1:12:131:12:16

He had a very sensitive feel for other people's suffering,

1:12:161:12:21

which also gave him the impetus to feel,

1:12:211:12:25

"I can make people wake up to what is really going on here".

1:12:251:12:29

So the sensitivity which might have made him

1:12:291:12:32

recoil from the images was allied to this conscience of his which says,

1:12:321:12:37

"I've got to get this story. It can only be told by photographs."

1:12:371:12:41

His journalism, which is best when that cold eye of his,

1:12:411:12:47

if you like, was informed by the warmth of his empathy,

1:12:471:12:52

and by the text, which amplified the image which you could see.

1:12:521:12:57

It's an awful question to ask you, but do you think the images you take

1:12:571:13:00

of horror, of war, actually make anybody change their mind about it?

1:13:001:13:04

Actually, to be honest, I don't think they have.

1:13:041:13:07

I've been photographing war for about 16 years

1:13:071:13:09

and I've got very disillusioned.

1:13:091:13:11

And I've just had an exhibition

1:13:111:13:14

and the exhibition was mostly attended by very young people

1:13:141:13:17

and judging by the letters that I have received, which were many,

1:13:171:13:20

the people who wrote to me were very young people

1:13:201:13:23

and they are the people who care about war.

1:13:231:13:25

I think the rest of us, the middle-aged,

1:13:251:13:27

I hate to say this, people, they've had war and they've had enough of it.

1:13:271:13:32

I think they are sick about hearing about it now.

1:13:321:13:35

They think there is no solution, but the young people,

1:13:351:13:37

who are tomorrow's people,

1:13:371:13:39

they are more interested about trying to do something about it.

1:13:391:13:42

They feel ashamed of it and can't understand it.

1:13:421:13:45

I mean, why don't you settle for the easy life and earn 500 quid

1:13:451:13:48

a day taking pictures of ladies wearing bras and things?

1:13:481:13:51

-Or not wearing bras?

-I would probably get a heart attack.

1:13:511:13:55

LAUGHTER

1:13:551:13:57

Did you like this one? The sulky lover?

1:13:581:14:00

You would be if you had a face like that against you.

1:14:021:14:04

THEY LAUGH

1:14:041:14:06

This is one of my favourite pictures. I don't have many favourites.

1:14:091:14:13

It's a classic example of intrusion, of course,

1:14:131:14:16

but it's just showing the English.

1:14:161:14:19

The deckchairs says it all, doesn't it?

1:14:191:14:22

One thing about England, you can guarantee to find

1:14:221:14:25

all kinds of kind of crazy people in the summer.

1:14:251:14:28

There's not, I don't think there is a country quite like this country

1:14:301:14:34

for the diversities of people's manifestations.

1:14:341:14:37

You know, eccentrics.

1:14:371:14:38

You can get them by the bus-load here in England. I love it.

1:14:381:14:41

MUSIC: "This Is England" by The Clash

1:14:411:14:43

# I hear a gang fire on a human factory farm

1:14:431:14:47

# Are they howling out or doing somebody harm?

1:14:471:14:51

# On a catwalk jungle somebody grabbed my arm

1:14:541:14:58

# A voice spoke so cold, it matched the weapon in her palm

1:15:001:15:04

# This is England

1:15:071:15:09

# This knife of Sheffield steel

1:15:091:15:12

# This is England

1:15:121:15:15

# This is how we feel

1:15:151:15:18

# This is England... #

1:15:341:15:38

When the print unions sabotaged the Sunday Times,

1:15:591:16:02

they basically killed the paper.

1:16:021:16:04

The Thomson Organisation said, "We can't go on like this.

1:16:041:16:07

"We can't have the paper wrecked not only physically but economically."

1:16:071:16:12

So they put the paper up for sale.

1:16:121:16:15

And they had a perception, a judgement,

1:16:171:16:19

that Rupert Murdoch, with his history of being pretty tough,

1:16:191:16:24

would be better able to control the print unions.

1:16:241:16:27

And in some respects, that was a fair judgement.

1:16:281:16:32

You've had enough photographs. I think we really...

1:16:321:16:34

-And with Mr Evans.

-Mr Evans.

1:16:341:16:36

And though he made promises about the papers would maintain

1:16:361:16:41

their independence, he did not keep them.

1:16:411:16:44

And this, of course, was very, very bad news for British journalism

1:16:441:16:50

but it was also bad news, individually, for Don McCullin.

1:16:501:16:54

When Murdoch took over the Sunday Times

1:16:541:16:56

and Harold Evans went over to the Times newspaper,

1:16:561:16:59

we all felt that, you know, we were looking at the beginning of the end.

1:16:591:17:03

And I had had 18 fantastic years there.

1:17:031:17:07

The precious independence that he'd had and the ability to go

1:17:071:17:12

and tell an unvarnished truth through the medium of film

1:17:121:17:16

was now at risk, and so it proved to be.

1:17:161:17:20

MUSIC

1:17:261:17:29

The Falklands War suddenly appeared on the horizon and I thought,

1:17:431:17:46

"I want to be in on this, because for the first time in my life,

1:17:461:17:51

"I'm going to be in a big, international war with British soldiers."

1:17:511:17:55

You know, I thought I was the natural person

1:17:551:17:58

and to my astonishment, I was barred.

1:17:581:18:00

It didn't happen.

1:18:001:18:03

I was left behind and I was utterly miserable and devastated.

1:18:031:18:08

It was an appalling decision to keep Don McCullin off the boat,

1:18:101:18:14

creating the excuse that boat was full.

1:18:141:18:17

It seemed to be saying, "Your photography is so honest,

1:18:191:18:23

"so searing, so implicit with meaning, we can't take the risk

1:18:231:18:27

"of you accessing freedom of expression."

1:18:271:18:31

I thought it was the most appalling decision

1:18:311:18:34

and its effect on him was to seem to say,

1:18:341:18:37

"You've spent your life documenting things

1:18:371:18:40

"we don't think you should ever have documented,"

1:18:401:18:43

which, of course, was saying, "Why have you bothered?

1:18:431:18:48

"Why have you bothered to risk your life to try and tell the truth?"

1:18:481:18:52

That's the reason I went back to Lebanon,

1:18:561:18:59

because I didn't go to the Falklands.

1:18:591:19:01

The Lebanon War was erupting at the same time.

1:19:011:19:04

Cos, you know, I can always go somewhere else.

1:19:041:19:07

If I couldn't go to this war, I could go to another war, you know.

1:19:071:19:09

Cos I was suffering from what you become, a war junkie, really.

1:19:091:19:14

I was suffering from that problem, you know.

1:19:141:19:16

The massacres were carried out by an elite special security formation

1:19:161:19:22

of the Lebanese Christian Phalange.

1:19:221:19:25

The operation was, at all stages,

1:19:251:19:28

under direct control of senior Phalange commanders.

1:19:281:19:31

During that early stage of the massacre at Shatila Camp,

1:19:311:19:34

the Israeli forces fired a constant barrage of flares

1:19:341:19:40

to light up the camp for the Phalange forces.

1:19:401:19:43

CLASSICAL MUSIC

1:19:441:19:46

One morning in the hotel, very early,

1:20:431:20:45

I had a call from someone saying, "Are you Mr McCullin?" I said yes.

1:20:451:20:49

They said, "Will you come down to the lobby?

1:20:491:20:52

"We want to take you to the hospital at Sabra and Shatila."

1:20:521:20:56

They said, "About 21 people have been killed in this hospital,

1:20:581:21:01

"but we are not interested in that.

1:21:011:21:03

"We want to show you the worst aspect of what has happened here today."

1:21:031:21:07

They took me upstairs to the children's department

1:21:071:21:10

of the insane side of the hospital

1:21:101:21:13

and to my astonishment, there was one nurse who had stayed

1:21:131:21:16

for five days during this shelling and the others had fled the hospital.

1:21:161:21:20

And she showed me around and I couldn't believe

1:21:251:21:28

what I was looking at.

1:21:281:21:30

She said, "We've had to tie the children to the beds,"

1:21:301:21:33

she said, "because we couldn't cope.

1:21:331:21:35

"They would have got away and been injured."

1:21:351:21:38

And there were children tied to the beds,

1:21:381:21:40

covered in flies, in a heat you wouldn't understand.

1:21:401:21:43

So these children were lying in buckets of their own filth,

1:21:451:21:48

starving hungry, dying of thirst.

1:21:481:21:50

MUSIC

1:21:521:21:54

And she said, "There is a room with more children.

1:22:061:22:09

"I've had to lock them in the room and they are blind and insane,"

1:22:091:22:13

and she said, "They're only two years old, some of them."

1:22:131:22:17

And she opened the door of this room

1:22:171:22:19

and the heat that came out of it, you could've roasted a chicken in it.

1:22:191:22:23

And out swam, in their own filth and mess,

1:22:231:22:26

they were like blind rats, these children.

1:22:261:22:29

I don't think I was ever more ashamed of humanity.

1:22:321:22:35

I thought, "If this is what people can do in the name of, you know,

1:22:351:22:40

"Christianity or whatever, you know..."

1:22:401:22:43

Because the war was being conducted against the Christians,

1:22:431:22:46

or the Christians were fighting back and the Jews were shelling,

1:22:461:22:51

I mean, the whole thing was about religious madness.

1:22:511:22:55

Who was paying the price?

1:22:551:22:57

I wandered away. I was in deep shock and I thought, "I'm confused, here.

1:22:571:23:02

"Why am I here? What has this got to do with my original concept of being a photographer?"

1:23:021:23:09

And I wandered into another room just to get away

1:23:121:23:15

from all this horrible, horrible stuff.

1:23:151:23:18

And I saw a child sitting,

1:23:181:23:20

playing with bits of debris as if he had Lego.

1:23:201:23:24

I think it was a day of reckoning for me,

1:23:291:23:32

because I don't think I could have ever touched on more tragedy,

1:23:321:23:35

all under one roof, than what I saw at that hospital that day.

1:23:351:23:38

I've never forgotten it.

1:23:381:23:40

The sad thing about these days that I never forget

1:23:471:23:50

is that they come back, on a regular basis,

1:23:501:23:54

as fresh as it was happening today, to haunt me.

1:23:541:23:57

There is nothing so powerful as reporting.

1:24:081:24:11

The government can't find out the things that reporters can.

1:24:111:24:15

Certainly, many governments wish to suppress

1:24:151:24:18

what can be found out, foreign governments and sometimes our own.

1:24:181:24:22

So this is a very,

1:24:221:24:24

very important quality of Don's impulses,

1:24:241:24:28

which is the passion to report what is happening

1:24:281:24:32

and insofar as that has diminished today,

1:24:321:24:35

we've lost a huge amount

1:24:351:24:37

and I think there is still a tremendous appetite

1:24:371:24:40

for really good photojournalism, really good reporting.

1:24:401:24:43

Mr Rupert Murdoch, on budget day,

1:24:441:24:47

asked me to resign as Editor of the Times. I refused.

1:24:471:24:51

At no time have the independent

1:24:521:24:54

national directors sought my resignation.

1:24:541:24:57

But in the circumstances, the differences between me

1:25:001:25:03

and Mr Murdoch should not be prolonged.

1:25:031:25:05

I am therefore resigning tonight as the Editor of the Times.

1:25:061:25:11

The reason I got pushed out of the Sunday Times was simple, actually.

1:25:111:25:15

They had brought a new editor in.

1:25:151:25:16

A man called Andrew Neil, who was very ambitious,

1:25:161:25:19

and quite, you know, he knew what he wanted.

1:25:191:25:22

Most new editors like to kick off with a new bunch of people

1:25:221:25:26

under them, but he did say that there would be no more

1:25:261:25:30

wars in the magazine and in fact, it would be a magazine

1:25:301:25:33

based on life and leisure, you know, to attract the ads.

1:25:331:25:38

So I was one of the first casualties,

1:25:381:25:42

because when I went and photographed wars and Africa

1:25:421:25:45

and dying and starving children,

1:25:451:25:47

I was going to make sure that I got the strongest images.

1:25:471:25:52

They didn't always sit well in a magazine

1:25:521:25:54

that was trying to sell you, you know, cars and luxury.

1:25:541:25:58

So I was definitely on the way out by that stage.

1:25:581:26:01

I asked him about the occasion he was invited to

1:26:301:26:32

an execution in Saigon and as I recall,

1:26:321:26:36

he went to the prison where the execution was going to take place

1:26:361:26:39

and turned back and refused to take the photograph.

1:26:391:26:43

It was because of his really powerful humanitarian impulses,

1:26:431:26:47

he didn't want to legitimise murder in any way.

1:26:471:26:51

Since, actually, his entire canon of photography

1:26:511:26:55

is to delegitimise violence and say,

1:26:551:26:58

"Look, these are the consequences of your political decision.

1:26:581:27:02

"These are the consequences of your greed.

1:27:021:27:05

"These are the consequences of your carelessness.

1:27:051:27:08

"Look on these and think again."

1:27:081:27:10

I think his entire impulse, a humanitarian photographer

1:27:101:27:15

with tremendous technical skill, amounting to genius, in my view.

1:27:151:27:20

MUSIC

1:27:221:27:24

I'm nearly 75 years of age now.

1:27:271:27:29

I still have some energy left, not a lot,

1:27:291:27:33

but I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to eradicate,

1:27:331:27:37

you know, the things we've been talking about.

1:27:371:27:40

I'm just going to photograph the landscape,

1:27:401:27:42

and the English landscape, to me, is my heaven.

1:27:421:27:46

My form of heaven.

1:27:461:27:48

The one thing that upsets me about it is, like all other things,

1:27:501:27:54

there is always a threat surrounding the things you love.

1:27:541:27:57

When I hear a chainsaw in the distance, you know,

1:27:571:28:00

I think a tree is dying.

1:28:001:28:02

When I hear shooting, when there is pheasant shooting,

1:28:021:28:05

I think there's going to be some blood somewhere.

1:28:051:28:08

The sound of gunfire immediately switches on

1:28:081:28:11

another part of my nervous system.

1:28:111:28:14

So I feel, as much as you try to run away from these things,

1:28:181:28:22

someone always presses a button and says, you know,

1:28:221:28:25

"Here is a reminder of, you know, what you used to do."

1:28:251:28:29

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