I was very low on cash by this point and, though I shudder to recall it, opted to walk from Victoria to Wapping carrying all my luggage on an unseasonably hot day. It’s a bloody long way, and took me around four hours.
‘My jaw dropped as I realised that I was now sharing the lift with Rupert Murdoch’
Seeing the Tower was surreal, and in fact the whole city looked like a film set to me. London seemed so olde-worlde, so quaint. Everywhere I looked I saw clichéd images like the famous red double-decker buses. I wasn’t impressed with Big Ben – it had looked much bigger on television. Initially, London struck me as a doom and gloom, ‘Get out of my way’ kind of place. No one seemed too keen to help a lonely Australian with directions. Lack of assistance notwithstanding, I made my way to the News International HQ and went to find Mr Frank Hart, who was the picture editor at the News of the World.
Inside the lift I jabbed the button and the doors closed, then suddenly reopened to admit a group of men. My jaw dropped as I realised that I was now sharing the lift with Rupert Murdoch and some of his immaculately turned-out henchmen.
I hadn’t come this far to miss an opportunity, so I introduced myself. ‘G’day, Mr Murdoch!’ I said cheerfully, and told him I used to work at his Geelong paper, The Advertiser. Not only that, but I had in fact been part of the Addy dragon-boat team that bore his name – Rupert’s Raiders. In between floors, I even managed to produce a team T-shirt featuring his caricature.
Whether or not he thought I was insane I don’t know, but he seemed interested – or perhaps just amused. He asked me what I was doing in London. Without hesitation, I told him who I was going to see and that I was planning to make it on Fleet Street. He smiled and was gracious enough to wish me luck. Probably to the relief of his associates, the doors then opened at my floor and I got out and headed for Frank Hart’s office.
After my meeting with the Boss I was feeling pretty confident, but it immediately became obvious that Frank didn’t have a lot of time and was only going to give my portfolio a cursory look – not least because it was a Friday and they were fairly manic, being the world’s largest-selling newspaper.
Just as Frank was telling me that I would probably be better off trying to cut my teeth in the UK at a suburban daily, and that he had a mate at the Croydon Advertiser, there was a frantic knocking on the window. I didn’t know what was going on at this point – the only Croydon I knew was in Melbourne and I had just flown from there. Frank went out to take a call and I figured I had reached the end of my appointment. I could see him chatting animatedly when suddenly he sat bolt upright and started nodding furiously.
I still don’t know who was on the other end of the line (so give me a call, Rupert, I’d love to know), but Frank came straight back in and said that my portfolio was great. ‘You start tomorrow, son,’ he told me, and that was that. I was to pull my first shift as a freelance the following day.
My mouth fell open, but I managed to recover enough to make sure I didn’t fumble this opportunity. Now it was my turn to start nodding furiously.
Five minutes later I was back on the street, Frank’s words ringing in my ears. I was off to Bournemouth with the paper’s chief reporter to find out if Windsor Davies was gay. My final question had been simple. ‘Great,’ I had said. ‘Who the fuck’s Windsor Davies?’
After the chance meeting with Murdoch and the incredible offer of some immediate work, I was on a real high. That night I took a bus to Muswell Hill to beg a favour from an old colleague at The News, Tracey Linguey, and her husband, Tony, who were living in London. I desperately needed somewhere to crash as my money was gone. Tracey had landed a plum gig at the Daily Mail but Tony, I was secretly amused to learn as we had never got on, was delivering TVs for Rumbelows. Tracey and I had agreed to rendezvous in her local pub, the Maid of Muswell. I was early and it wasn’t long before the travel, the excitement of the day and a couple of pints of British beer caught up with me. When Tracey arrived, she found me sound asleep under a table.
The following day, I was still tired and jetlagged. The chief reporter picked me up from Muswell Hill and we set off for Poole in Dorset. He told me that this was going to be an easy gig and that I was going to sample the best seafood I’d ever had in my life. It wasn’t the best of course. (I’m Australian, for fuck’s sake! I know good seafood.) However, the trip did teach me about the expenses fiddle. It was regarded as a kind of unofficial overtime for a newspaperman in the UK, and I had to learn quickly, otherwise everyone else was going to get caught out. I hated having to fill in all those forms. It was a pain in the arse, but you had to do it. Everyone had a regular expenses fiction and my own favourite creation was ‘Use of galibea, £20’. I was never once asked what the hell a galibea was, but I’ve since discovered it’s the name for the flowing robe worn by Muslim men!
After that first job, I got work almost every day. Freelancers were always advised not to rely on one source of jobs, so I also covered the odd job for The Sun and The Standard. I was truly a free agent, covering sports, trailing outside restaurants or celebrities’ houses for a possible shot – otherwise known as doorstepping – anything for any paper I could get work from. At one point I did go for an interview at the Croydon Advertiser because the regularity of the pay attracted me. I went down to The News in Portsmouth, too. Thank God something made me turn them down.
Tracey remembers all too well my stay with her in what she describes as her ‘broom cupboard’ in Muswell Hill. I was out on the road every day with my portfolio, tapping up new contacts, certainly not afraid of rejection. I only stayed with them for three weeks, sleeping on the floor, pretty much living on Wimpey burgers and bad Indian food. After I moved out they still saw me – I was always keen on a backyard barbecue. Not that the weather was any good, but when a barbie is on offer I am there by hook or by crook.
My expertise was growing with every new day and my horizons were certainly expanding. My first experience with the royals was right after I arrived in London: I covered Prince William’s first day at school. There were about 150 photographers there in the morning and everyone shot the proceedings, but I hung around at the back door for the rest of the day and got a shot of the young prince leaving for home. I was the only photographer to get something that was informal and natural and it was my first exclusive. I sold the picture to The Express, who paid me £75 for it – at that point I had no idea how to negotiate. They used it big and then I took it to an agency, Rex Features, who syndicated it for me. Mike Selby, the head of Rex at the time, looked at me slightly askance. It was as if he was thinking that I was the kind of guy who might one day come back to haunt him. BIG is now bigger than Rex.
People don’t know the work that goes into this career. When I started out it was far from glamorous. After moving out of Tracey and Tony’s place, I shared a bedsit over the road from them in Muswell Road, Muswell Hill, with an English couple. We had a room each and not much else for £50 a week. It worked out fine for quite a while. I was hardly ever there; it was very much shift, shift, job, job. The room was big enough for a bed, a desk and a sofa. I had all manner of ridiculous things covering the walls – pictures of me dressed as Rambo, silly, tacky things that made me laugh.
When I first arrived in London I was incredibly naive about life in general. One day I was sent to get some shots at a trial and I just walked into the High Court and started taking photographs of the guy in the witness box. Of course, I was jumped instantly by the security guys. I had no idea I wasn’t allowed to take photos in there. I’d been used to just waltzing around Geelong doing whatever I