finding me work. I unrealistically expected them to care about what I was going through; I understood the business associations as a form of friendship, rather than just an exchange of dollars for my pictures. I felt betrayed that neither agency took me under its wing in that strange city. I was in a troubled state of mind, shocked at what I had seen and depressed at having had to leave South Africa. I kept in touch with very few people back home, and most of my calls were to the Johannesburg AP office, trying to find out when I could return. Money was not really an immediate problem, as the British affiliate of my journalists’ union back home gave me some money and let me stay in the union apartment in the city whenever it was free. When it was occupied, I would spend time at my aunt and her husband’s house in the country, where I was made to feel completely at home. But they lived far from London and it was expensive and timeconsuming to commute from there all the time. Camera Press, a picture agency, let me chase their unpaid bills and shoot local events: it was a job and I could survive on it, but I did not want to cover press conferences, rugby matches or London demos.
I had lots of feature ideas that nobody would assign. I was swiftly learning the dictum of journalism: if it bleeds, it leads. Papers would pay for photographers to go to war zones a lot quicker than they would spring for an essay on gypsy life in Eastern Europe. And so I decided that a good war was what I needed to take my mind off South Africa and to stop me wallowing in self-pity. After two months, Stuart Nicol, a former freelancer who had become the picture editor on the European newspaper, looked through my portfolio and sent me off on my first ever international assignment. He simply gave me a plane ticket and a wad of traveller’s cheques. I assumed I would have to sign some kind of undertaking to work for them until the Second Coming, but Stuart
waved me off with an amused smile. My assignment was to cover the student riots in the streets of Belgrade and the possible collapse of Yugoslavia; but, by the time I arrived, the police had already beaten the opposition into submission and there was nothing to photograph. I stayed in progressively cheaper hotels and finally in youth hostels to save the paper’s money - I was so green that I did not yet know that it is a foreign correspondent’s duty to stay in the most costly hotels and run up impressive expenses.
Belgrade in November of 1990 was dark, cold and full of miserable people. I skulked around the region doing inconsequential features, hoping for distraction. One afternoon, I lay on my hotel bed wistfully aroused as I listened to the noisy sex of an anonymous couple on the other side of the thin wall.
Then the paper sent me to Hungary to do a story on the revival of Judaism - a happy story and a chance to escape the Slavic wretchedness of Yugoslavia. The Hungarian capital, Budapest, even in mid-winter, was full of beautiful women and excellent ice cream. But all I could think about was South Africa and my depression grew so severe that I became obsessed with thoughts of suicide. One cold evening I went for a walk and found myself on a bridge over the Danube. I was staring down into the swirling, icy waters: as if I were being drawn down into the current, tugged towards the water. The thought crossed my mind that the river might not be deep enough: what if I plunged off and landed in waist-deep water, cold and embarrassed? I reassured myself that the mighty Danube had to be deep, but the distracting thought made it all seem ridiculous. I pulled back, angry with myself that I could give up so easily. Right then, I decided to go home. Despite my paranoia, the police were not waiting at Johannesburg airport to arrest me.
The Hostel War was going on much as it was when I had left and I easily slipped back into the grisly routine of covering the violence. I again took up stringing for the AP,
I had lots of feature ideas that nobody would assign. I was swiftly learning the dictum of journalism: if it bleeds, it leads. Papers would pay for photographers to go to war zones a lot quicker than they would spring for an essay on gypsy life in Eastern Europe. And so I decided that a good war was what I needed to take my mind off South Africa and to stop me wallowing in self-pity. After two months, Stuart Nicol, a former freelancer who had become the picture editor on the European newspaper, looked through my portfolio and sent me off on my first ever international assignment. He simply gave me a plane ticket and a wad of traveller’s cheques. I assumed I would have to sign some kind of undertaking to work for them until the Second Coming, but Stuart
waved me off with an amused smile. My assignment was to cover the student riots in the streets of Belgrade and the possible collapse of Yugoslavia; but, by the time I arrived, the police had already beaten the opposition into submission and there was nothing to photograph. I stayed in progressively cheaper hotels and finally in youth hostels to save the paper’s money - I was so green that I did not yet know that it is a foreign correspondent’s duty to stay in the most costly hotels and run up impressive expenses.
Belgrade in November of 1990 was dark, cold and full of miserable people. I skulked around the region doing inconsequential features, hoping for distraction. One afternoon, I lay on my hotel bed wistfully aroused as I listened to the noisy sex of an anonymous couple on the other side of the thin wall.
Then the paper sent me to Hungary to do a story on the revival of Judaism - a happy story and a chance to escape the Slavic wretchedness of Yugoslavia. The Hungarian capital, Budapest, even in mid-winter, was full of beautiful women and excellent ice cream. But all I could think about was South Africa and my depression grew so severe that I became obsessed with thoughts of suicide. One cold evening I went for a walk and found myself on a bridge over the Danube. I was staring down into the swirling, icy waters: as if I were being drawn down into the current, tugged towards the water. The thought crossed my mind that the river might not be deep enough: what if I plunged off and landed in waist-deep water, cold and embarrassed? I reassured myself that the mighty Danube had to be deep, but the distracting thought made it all seem ridiculous. I pulled back, angry with myself that I could give up so easily. Right then, I decided to go home. Despite my paranoia, the police were not waiting at Johannesburg airport to arrest me.
The Hostel War was going on much as it was when I had left and I easily slipped back into the grisly routine of covering the violence. I again took up stringing for the AP,
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