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I always wanted to be a serious journalist.

I realise that I had the best of serious picture journalism. There was an innocence in our approach, especially in the 1950s and 1960s when we naively believed that by holding a mirror up to the world we could help - no matter how little - to make people aware of the human condition.

It turned out I really didn't like journalism. I wanted to make up stories, not cover real events.

Great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart.

I had discovered journalism to be my life's ambition.

There is no doubt that the way journalism worked when I was growing up and getting started has changed forever.

But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.

I thank God I was a reporter before I became a writer.

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

The passion and knowledge of journalism as storytelling is incredibly infectious.