I often say I didn’t choose photography, it chose me. At 20 I came out of the Royal Air Force, where I had failed my trade test to become a photographer (I was never good at being tested – I’d even failed my 11-plus). I had a camera I’d bought in Nairobi and never properly used, until by chance I got some work at the Observer in 1959.
Two years later, the paper put me on a retainer for two days a week. I was earning very little money – 15 guineas a week – but gaining a great deal of knowledge about England. I was sent to every corner, to cover coalmining strikes, byelections, anti-fascist rallies, nuclear protests. I learned how to follow the action. You knew one event came after the other. Sooner or later someone would get a bit too troublesome. You kept your eyes open, looking for the next move: an arrest, a fight. It became a natural way of thinking and working and moving. I was very fast on my legs in those days – as quick as a greyhound.
