Unreasonable Behavior

by Don McCullin

  I suppose one of the good things about old age is that you do have more time for reflection. But the problem, I’ve found, is that you don’t seem to have much of a choice about what to reflect on. So the lucky escapes and the cruel encounters and the ghastly injuries I’ve seen keep coming back to me unbidden, sharp and clear as in a photograph. And there’s another thing that really is puzzling me.

  Lately, I’ve been going to bed at night thinking about the Holocaust. It never leaves me. I put myself in the death camps, and hopelessly try to devise methods of survival and escape. It’s as if my own direct experiences of danger are inadequate and my imagination feels compelled to come up with even more dreadful situations. I can’t think why. It’s not a deliberate choice. My preference would be for reverie of a more tranquil nature. It’s probably one of life’s inexplicable contradictions.

  Another contradiction, of a much less harrowing nature, relates to my wife’s work. In the normal course of her duties as a leading travel writer, Catherine gets invited to stay at some fabulous places. And occasionally I am included in the free promotional package. This has taken me to some amazing establishments. In one hotel the ceiling was so high I thought I’d woken up in the Royal Albert Hall. In another, in India, we had our own private swimming pool as part of the suite. These are the kind of places where a paying customer can expect to fork out £5,000 and more for one night. But am I grateful? Sadly, I’m not.

  I lie in these temples of high consumption, thinking how much I would prefer to be back home tucked up in my own bed. So after almost a lifetime of complaining about the grinding poverty of my childhood, I find myself grumbling on in old age about the oppression of the luxury I have to put up with. Small wonder that Catherine sometimes thinks I’m hard to please, though on most other levels our mutual understanding could hardly be bettered.

  As a journalist herself, she certainly understands my need to feel in touch with the outside world, though she sometimes asks me to tone down what she calls my ‘morning rant’ at John Humphrys and company on the Today programme. She also understands my ambition, even if she’s not always inclined to share it.

  The remarkable fact is that, even in my eightieth year, I am not without a measure of peer-group pressure, particularly from the brilliant crowd of Sunday Times journalists who came up with me through the Sixties, many of whom are still resolute achievers. Harry Evans, with his sprightliness enhanced by two knee replacements, is still making journalistic waves in New York; James Fox is back in the big time as the wordsmith of Life, the best-selling memoir of Keith Richards, the Rolling Stone guitarist; Phil Jacobson is still churning out his high-quality magazine articles, while Willie Shawcross, would you believe, is chairman of the Charities Commission.

  Three of the leading characters in the Sunday Times magazine art department which handled all my pictures are also still at it: Mike Rand exhibits his visual wit and wisdom on the ‘Professional Photographer’ website; David King now displays his unique collection of Soviet poster art on the walls of Tate Modern, while Roger Law is currently capping his career as the co-creator (with Peter Fluck) of the Spitting Image TV satire series by designing and decorating some of the biggest porcelain pots England has ever seen.

  There’s not much evidence of actual retirement going on. I could, of course, produce a longer and more sombre list of those who have passed away, but even most of them died with a work in progress. I sometimes feel, as an unlikely survivor, that I should be carrying some of their collective quality forward for the benefit of future generations. Unfortunately, old age, or at least my old age, does not seem to work that way. I am no smarter for knowing other super-intelligent Sunday Times contemporaries such as Murray Sayle, David Leith and Hugo Young, all now sadly among the deceased. The best I can do is miss them.

  I don’t have much wisdom to pass on, even about photography. The plain fact is that you can possess the best camera that ever came out of Japan and still only produce photographs that are no better than a succession of eyesores. Yet a Box Brownie, in the right hands, is still capable of yielding an image that would have made Henri Cartier-Bresson proud. Equipment is fun to play with but it’s the eye that counts. I’m not saying that the eye for a picture cannot ever be taught, but the only sure route to it is through a lot of personal trial and error.

  I do, however, have one tip that should be useful for would-be itinerant photo-journalists. Always make your own bed before leaving a hotel room, never leave it to the maid. The logic of this is that you can lay out all your bits and pieces of gear on a properly made bed, and check it over before bunging it into the travel bag. I’ve seen many an assignment ruined by photographers departing in haste and leaving their light meters, and sometimes even their passports, behind still nestled in the crumpled sheets.

  One of the things that does disturb me is that some documentary photography is now being presented as art. Although I am hugely honoured to have been one of the first photographers to have their work bought and exhibited by the Tate gallery, I feel ambiguous about my photographs being treated as art. I really can’t talk of the people in my war photographs as the subjects of art. They are real. They are not arranging themselves for the purposes of display. They are people whose suffering I have inhaled and that I’ve felt bound to record. But it’s the record of the witness that is important, not the artistic impression. I have been greatly influenced by art, that is true, but I don’t see this kind of photography itself as being art.

  In this digital age, of course, everybody can be a photographer, and that’s not a bad thing. However, there are some areas of professional photography that are not having such a good time.

  It is, for example, much tougher for press photographers now than it was in my days as a staff photographer on the Sunday Times. Still reeling from the impact of the Internet, newspapers are cutting back in all directions, and the budget for photography has been one of the major casualties. There are far fewer staff positions and most of the jobs are done by freelances, often with little or no back-up.

  When I was in Idi Amin’s jail in Uganda I saw a newspaper report in which I was incorrectly described as a ‘freelance photographer’, and I remember being almost paralysed with apprehension as it suggested to my jailers that I might be much more casually disposed of than a man from the Sunday Times. There are many freelance photographers operating right now in the worst danger spots of the Middle East but, as the casualty figures show, at far greater risk to themselves than was previously the case. I am pleased to say that the Frontline Club in Paddington, of which I’m an honorary member, has launched a Frontline Freelance Register with the aim of assisting those working in war zones with issues like employer responsibility, welfare, digital security and insurance. It has not come a moment too soon.

  My main hope in old age is to live long enough to see Max, a bright light in my life, through his school years at Marlborough College, though I realise that I’m not likely to be able to do that by passively watching and waiting. I’m already walking around the crater’s edge of the volcano due to be transformed into ash at less than a moment’s notice, but that’s hardly within my control. It’s the keeping on ‘keeping on going’ that’s becoming the issue.

  Max, 2006

  My feet, even encased in Mark Shand’s sturdy wellies, are beginning to protest, to the extent that I may soon have to abandon my landscape photography. My reduced tolerance for the chemicals in my dark room means that I have to limit the time spent in what was once my happiest work environment. And war, I think I can now say with reasonable confidence, is out of the question.

  The Somerset Levels, 2014

  Still, there is more work to do. I am putting together several new volumes of my photographs, planning new exhibitions in America and closer to home, and I’m arranging a trip to Nagaland, in India, in honour of Mark Shand. Waking up today to a morning of birdsong, and stepping out of my back door, I spot the antlers of
a deer emerging from the mist in my orchard. The light breaks through the cloud, striking the Iron Age hill fort like the fingers of God. And I find myself saying: ‘Thank you . . . whoever you are.’

  Somerset, 2014

  INDEX

  DM indicates Don McCullin.

  Entries in italics indicate photographs.

  All page numbers refer to the print edition of Unreasonable Behavior. Please use the search feature on your reader to locate the text that corresponds to the index entries below.

  A Day in the Life of the Beatles (McCullin) 343

  ABC News 310, 334, 335–6

  Aché Indians 204–5, 207

  Achebe, Chinua 137

  Adams, Eddie 109

  Aden: DM’s national service in 37

  advertising (commercial) photography 208, 294, 298, 310, 316–18, 321

  Afghanistan 3, 251, 253–9, 256–7, 260, 314, 338, 358

  Aids, African epidemic 322–7, 323, 338

  Aleppo, Syria 352–6, 357, 360

  Alexander, Andrew 91, 92

  Alexandria, Egypt 105, 285

  Algeria 147, 209, 344, 345

  Amazon rain forest 168, 169–70

  Amin, Idi 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 194, 364

  Amman, Jordan 160–5, 235–6

  Ammar, Abu see Arafat, Yasser

  An Loc, Vietnam 198–9

  Anstey, John 91

  Antonioni, Michelangelo 95

  Anza, Hakim 353, 355, 360, 361

  Aoun, General 286, 292

  Arab-Israeli conflict see Six Day War

  Arab Spring, 2010–11, 351–2

  Arafat, Yasser 229, 235–7, 239, 251, 281, 282

  Arbenz, President 171

  Ark (boat) 280

  Armstrong-Jones, Anthony (later Lord Snowdon) 96, 157

  Arthur, King 90

  Asanti, Congo 79

  Aserati, Bert 40

  Ashton, Laraine 262–3, 275, 283, 285, 288, 293, 295, 299, 300, 302–3, 307, 310, 316, 319, 358

  Assad, President Bashar al- 352, 355

  Associated Television 242

  Astles, Bob 189–94

  Astor, David 45

  Astoria Cinema, Finsbury Park 21, 22, 43

  Asunción, Paraguay 210, 211, 212

  Attallah, Naim 234

  Ayios Sozomenos, Cyprus 58, 61–2

  Bailey, David 262

  Batcombe, Somerset: DM’s house in 285, 290, 293, 294, 303, 307, 309, 310, 316, 318, 319, 320, 322, 329, 331, 339, 341, 345, 357, 358, 359, 362

  BBC television 44, 100, 164, 198, 239, 332, 334; Panorama 164

  Beatles, the 96, 343

  Bedouin 160, 237

  Beeston, Richard 350–1, 356, 359

  Beirut, Lebanon 143; Christians/Christian Falange in, 1976 220–3, 224, 225–30, 232–3, 260; DM visits with David Cornwell (John le Carré) 245; Israeli bombing of, 1982 280–3, 284, 285–6; Palestinians in 221, 222, 225, 229, 230–1, 232–3, 235–7; Syrian forces in 238

  Beka’a valley, Lebanon 230

  Berets Rouges 144–5, 162

  Berlin, Germany 49, 50, 56–7

  Bhagalpur Blindings, India 261

  Biafra, conflict in, 1967–70 3, 96, 122–37, 133, 136, 149, 168, 187, 188, 239, 267, 308; starving children in 122–37

  Bihar, India 88, 261

  Bioko, Macias Nguena 287

  Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire: DM’s farmhouse in 194, 241, 302–3, 307

  Black September extremists 235

  Blair, Tony 331, 332

  Bloody Sunday, Derry, 1972 180

  Blow Up (film) 95

  Blundy, David 275, 285, 308

  Boas brothers 169–70

  Bogside, Derry 161–5, 175, 177, 178–80

  Borchgrave, Arnaud de 162, 163

  Bradford 241, 341

  Brandt, Bill 37

  Brassaï 37

  Brazil 168–9

  Bridges, Marilyn 317–21, 322

  Britain: and Biafra 123; and Falklands war 276–9, 343; and Iran 247; and Israeli-Palestinian conflict 237–8; and Vietnam 197–8; see also England

  British Virgin Islands 91–2

  Brodie, Steve 204

  Brown, Jane 45

  Buford, Bill 289

  Bukavu, Congo 81

  Bunk, The (Wadcote Street) 13, 17, 24, 27, 43

  Burntollet Bridge ambush, Northern Ireland 178

  Burrows, Larry 3, 90

  Bush, President George W. 331, 333

  Bush Sr, President George 311, 313, 334

  Caazapá, Paraguay 211

  Cagnoni, Romano 204

  Cairo, Egypt 98

  Calavera, Maria (Mary Skull) 212

  Calcutta, India 173–4, 175

  Cambodia 3, 149–59, 156, 159, 160, 162, 202–3, 216–19, 217, 279, 320; see also Khmer Rouge

  Cambodian army 150–1, 153, 154, 155, 157

  Cambridge University: Granta 289–90

  camels 143, 255, 310

  Camera magazine 50

  Canal Zone 30, 34, 98

  cannibalism 73, 142

  Capa, Cornell 3, 103, 357

  Capa, Robert 3, 22, 103

  Carlsson (missionary) 78

  Caron, Gilles 124–6, 127, 128, 149, 155, 308

  Carter, Camilla 316

  Carter, President Jimmy 249

  Castro, Fidel 93, 96, 97, 264

  ‘Catastrophe, The’ 238

  Cavala, George de 122

  Cecilio Baez camp, Paraguay 210–13

  Chad, war in 3, 143–8

  Chalabi, Ahmad 333, 334, 335, 336

  Chancellor, Alexander 311

  Chapman, Jessie 19

  Chatwin, Bruce 209, 344, 347

  Chicago 93, 94

  Chichicastenango, Guatemala 170

  China 195–7

  Chou En-lai 195, 196, 197

  Christians/Christian Falange, Lebanese 222–3, 224, 225–31, 232–3, 235, 280, 285–6

  Christian Aid 322–6, 338

  Churchill, Sir Winston 106, 107

  CIA: in Congo 74–5, 81; in Guatemala 171; in Iran 247; Iraq War and 333; in South-East Asia 149

  Clifton, Tony 140, 141, 142, 280–1

  Cold Heaven (McCullin) 338

  Colorado Valley 213–14

  Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, London 65–6

  Congo 3, 71–81, 72, 82, 91, 119, 188

  Conrad, Joseph xiii, 71, 244

  Consett, Durham 209, 341

  Cooper, Mr (schoolteacher) 24

  Cooper, Roger 246–52, 253–9, 314

  Cornell Capa Award 357

  Cornwell, David see le Carré, John

  Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay 212

  C-rats (Vietnam) 114

  Crookston, Peter 96

  CS gas 175

  Cuba 96–7, 264, 339

  Cyprus; civil war 53–64, 60, 61, 62–3, 75, 82; DM’s family holiday in 172; DM’s national service in 36–7

  Czechoslovakia 161, 343

  Da Nang, Vietnam 86, 111, 120, 121

  Daily Express 105

  Daily Mail 219

  Daily Mirror 53, 183, 218

  Daily Telegraph 90–1, 128, 187, 189, 193

  Damascus, Syria 231, 281, 311, 344

  Damour, Lebanon 238

  Dartmoor Prison, Devon 89

  Davies, Hunter 209

  Dawson’s Field, Jordan 160, 161–2

  Deir Yassin massacre, 1948 238

  Dergham, Kassem 313

  Derry, Northern Ireland: Bloody Sunday, 1972 180; Bogside 161–5, 175, 176, 177, 178–80; Creggan estate 179

  Desert life 139, 141<
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  Destruction Business, The (McCullin) 172

  Devi, Phulan 261

  Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam 81, 87, 109, 111

  Dimbleby, Jonathan 234, 235–9; The Palestinians 234–9, 251

  Don McCullin in Africa (McCullin) 329, 338

  Douad, Abu 237, 238

  Druze, the 285

  Dubček, Alexander 161

  Duma, the 141–2

  Duncan, David Douglas 111

  Dunn, Peter 92–3

  Eagle Operation, Vietnam 85–6

  Egypt: war with Israel, 1967 204, 205; see also Alamein, El; Cairo

  El Alamein 104, 105–6, 107

  El Salvador 3, 264–71, 275, 273, 286

  Emery, Fred 120, 278

  England: DM’s wartime evacuation in north of 10–11; Homecoming and 242; see also Britain

  English, David 219

  Eoka terrorists 36

  Equatorial Guinea, Republic of 287–8

  Erbil, Iraq 312–14, 333, 334

  Eritrea 143, 310

  Ethiopia; famine in 289, 292; primitive tribes in 328–9, 338

  Evans, Harry 95, 123, 204, 208–9, 218, 260, 288, 350, 362

  Fairhall, John 187, 188, 189, 193

  Fairweather, Catherine (DM’s wife) ix, 327, 328, 329–30, 332, 334, 336, 338, 339–40, 341, 342, 345, 347, 348, 349, 351, 358, 359, 361–2

  Fairweather, Maria 327, 332, 339, 345, 358

  Fairweather, Natasha 359

  Fairweather, Sir Patrick 327, 339, 358

  Falkender, Marcia 65–6

  Falklands war, 1982 275–9, 285, 343

  fashion photography 90, 208, 262, 276, 327, 342, 358

  Fatah, El 236, 237

  Fay, Stephen 276

  Faya-Largeau, Chad 144, 145

  fedayeen guerrillas, Jordan 160, 163

  Fernando Po 287, 288

  Finsbury Park, London 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 47, 52, 64, 66, 68, 89, 97, 148, 220, 327, 341; Blackstock Road cafe 40, 42; The Bunk (Wadcote Street) 17, 24, 27, 43; Fonthill Road 8, 9, 15, 17, 23, 32, 38, 41, 44, 47; Finsbury Park Mosque 341

  Fleet Street, London 43, 45, 50, 65, 96, 105, 260, 292

  Flynn, Sean 84

  Fort-Lamy, Chad 143–5