According to my diary on the evening of the 19th of August 1986 I made my way back to London from Norfolk. The next morning I was off to the Oval to get todays picture of Ian Botham warming up after his suspension. I am not sure what I managed to get, some sort of Photo-call shot before he went off to the nets and I went off to find a phone box to ring in. My instructions were a bit mysterious, hand over my film to the DR (Dispatch Rider) then make my way to Wormwood Scrubs, find the car park by the West London Stadium and wait.
I was to relieve another photographer who was there, very hush hush, under no circumstances was I to tell anyone where I was from or what I was doing. At some point but nobody knew when, a helicopter was to land on the playings behind the Scrubs and take away a notorious Australian drug Baron to face charges in Australia. It transpired the Mirror had had photographers on this for a couple of days, always a worry as money had already been spent! I settled down for a long and what I expected would be a fruitless wait.
After quite a while, a few hours, there seemed to be a bit of activity, I perked up, checked my cameras hidden under my jacket on the front seat, spare film in my pockets that sort of thing. Suddenly a policeman appeared and tapped on my window, my heart sank, this was not good, what was I to tell him? I opened the window to chat, he asked me what I was doing, I said the first thing that came into my head. I was having an illicit affair and was waiting for my lover to arrive; this seemed to go well until he asked what was under my jacket. Oh just my cameras I replied as if everybody carried a couple of Nikons with motor drives and long lenses with them on the front seat of their car when meeting their lover. He seemed to accept this but then asked me to show him what was in the boot. I opened it up and there as expected more photo gear and boxes of film. He thanked me and set off back the way he had come. As I was returning to the drivers seat I noticed a lot more police activity in the lane in front of me, a large amount of cars with what were obviously armed police. This was not going well, as far as I could see this helicopter would whistle in overhead, I would grabbed my cameras from the front seat and rush out of the bushes to get my picture and at best be arrested and at worst shot!
Well under the circumstances I thought it might be a good thing to come clean and see what could be salvaged or arranged. I called out to the fast departing policeman: “Excuse me Officer” He turned “I am afraid I have been lying to you” This seemed to come as no surprise to him as he returned to my car. “I see Sir, so what are you doing here?”
Well, I thought I better not go into too much detail but just say I was with a national newspaper and was expecting a helicopter to land and take someone away. He then got on his radio and explained the situation to his boss, he then wanted to know how long I had been there. About 6 or 7 hours I told him but added that we had had other people on it for at least a day or two, this was relayed to his boss, after listening to his reply he turned to me. “Right Sir, I think you better come with me” Well, I thought that’s that; probably the last time I work for the Mirror. “Can I just lock my cameras in the boot before we go?”
“Absolutely not” he replied “Bring everything you need with you”
Well that was a surprise
So off we went on to the playing field where I was introduced to the officer in charge. He explained that our tip off had obviously come from very high up as he had only been told about the operation a few hours ago. He gave me all the information about when the prison van would arrive, which door the prisoner would get out of and where the helicopter would land and the direction it would take off in.
It all went as exactly as told, with the bonus that the prisoner looked directly in the camera.
It was then a rush across London, back to the Mirror in Holborn to get the film developed and see the results. Always a bit scary as so many things can go wrong, nothing is certain until you have got the magnifying glass on the contact print and then hand them over to the Picture Editor to make his choice. Not long after massive prints arrive, my typed caption was added to the back and off it goes to the subs. My job done, plenty of back slapping and complements then off home and out for a few celebratory beers.
Above is the full story written by Sylvia Jones.
This was my first centre page spread in a national newspaper, I have added the cutting above as it is quite fun to see the price of the various things in the adverts!!
