IT WAS A STEEP LEARNING CURVE

I’m an adventurer and used to danger, but the assignment to cover the Blue Nile expedition proved something else altogether.

I had three cameras and about a hundred rolls of film, which I sent back via our supply lines.

I certainly took some risks to get the right photographs, like any war correspondent does: I had never fired a pistol before, never been so close to drowning and never experienced such huge crocodiles. I knew nothing about river travel, and it was a steep learning curve.

It was a fantastic and extraordinary adventure, as well as a tragic one for the loss of Corporal Ian Macleod.

I didn’t always do as I was told – no good journalist does. But I got the story.