Stories behind the pictures
The Guv'nors, Finsbury Park, London, 1958
I grew tired of my gangland friends constantly pestering me to take snapshots of them in their Sunday best suits ... One summer’s Sunday afternoon, while we were hanging around on the street corner, waiting for the start of the matinee performance at the Astoria cinema in Seven Sisters Road, I persuaded them to pose in the skeleton of a bombed out and vandalised house...
Don McCullin, Sleeping With Ghosts, 1994
Mother and son, Bradford, 1978
I met a woman who asked me, “Are you from the Press?” because she could see my camera. I said, “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am”. She said, “Right, get in this house”. She had a child with her and in one of my pictures you can see the child and her in her kitchen, a terrible, terrible place. She said, “Take the gentleman into the house and tell him about the long tails”, and I thought, what’s she talking about? I asked her, “What do you mean, long tails?” And she said, “Rats”.
Don McCullin, Sleeping With Ghosts, 1994
Windsor Baths, Bradford, early 1970s
I went to the Turkish baths again to ask the old boys if I could photograph them. I was embarrassed. It was a day when old-age pensioners could get in for nothing, and I took them by surprise. The lady gave me a piece of white cloth which you’re meant to wrap around you like a sarong or to lie on. I went in wearing that – I must have looked ridiculous with my camera and tripod and flash-gun.
Don McCullin, Homecoming, 1979
St. Pancras Assembly Rooms, London, early 1970s
When I went along to photograph the body-builders at St Pancras Assembly Rooms, I thought I'd get a funny picture. I found the blokes rather unfriendly ... I went into the room behind the stage, and the whole floor was covered in discarded bottles of Johnson's Baby Oil. They'd been absolutely lacing their bodies with it, to get a sheen and a better emphasis on certain muscles. They kept brushing past me, and everything I touched seemed to smell of it.
Don McCullin, Homecoming, 1979
East End, London, 1973
There’d be a bonfire, made out of old rubbish and boxes, in the great fruit and vegetable market of Spitalfields ... That would be the true magnet. At any time of the day or night you’d see a group of dossers sprawled, standing, sometimes sleeping, some totally drunk, round it – come together like starlings, as if at a given signal. They’d all be squabbling, and they’d all have the self-same look about them: drained of anything to do with humanity – like scarecrows, vultures, jackdaws.
Don McCullin, Homecoming, 1979
Snowy, Cambridge, early 1970s
This extraordinary character, who collects for charity, is well-known in Cambridge as Snowy ... He wanted to be photographed ... he looked at me with cheeky blue eyes, opened his mouth and put the live mouse in. He leaned his head back and laughed. The mouse was licking the roof of his mouth and his tongue, putting its head in and out, and at the same time another was all over his beard.
Don McCullin, Homecoming, 1979
Ladies' Day, Royal Ascot, 2006
I went to Royal Ascot for my book In England. Of course I was exploiting the people who were so pleased with themselves to be wearing their top hats and tails. It was heaven for me ... I asked a group, “May I photograph this lovely privileged day?”. One of the ladies turned around and said to me, “Of course you may. Why don’t you stay and have a bit of lunch”, because they were having a picnic. These people who you go to distrust and dislike can suddenly pull the floor from under you with such a courteous gesture. No one in the East End has ever said to me “Come and have a bite to eat with us”. It’s tricky this country but I like that because it’s a challenge.
Don McCullin, interviewed in 2009
Mayfair, London, 1965
I’d get on the tube in the morning to go to work in Mayfair and I’d be aware of the fact that we didn’t have a bath in my house. I used to bath once a week and in the summer we’d go into the garden and my mother, with her cigarette hanging from her mouth, would stick a hosepipe out of the window and hose me down. I used to be terribly aware of going on the Piccadilly line to work every day thinking, or possibly knowing, there was a slight body odour - that I was carrying Finsbury Park to Mayfair.
Don McCullin, interviewed in 2009
Day of Ashura, Bradford, 2006
I went to Bradford a couple of years ago, checked into the hotel and then I thought ‘I’ll just drive up the road’. I was stopped by a policeman who said, “Keep going. Keep going”. I thought, ‘Something’s going on’. So I parked the car and walked. I found a whole load of people flaying their bare bodies with knives, celebrating the day of Ashura, a Shi’a festival. It was snowing and I thought, ‘You can never lose in Bradford, visually’.
Don McCullin, interviewed in 2009