Vietnam war photographer Derek Maitland on crippling PTSD and his final battle, with cancer
The former photojournalist recalls his childhood journey from Britain to Australia, landing in hedonistic Hong Kong and realising his dream of becoming a war correspondent
Ten pound pom I was a “10 pound pom” who arrived in Australia from Britain in 1956 (on the assisted passage migration scheme that ran from 1947 until 1982 with subsidised fares of £10). To get a world cruise for £10 is not a bad deal. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a 12-year-old boy from Wickford, in Essex.
The ship we migrated on – The Otranto – was a first world war troopship that was on its last voyage before going to the knackers. It broke down about six times, its fuel system ruptured and leaked into the freshwater system so that everything we ate for days gave us diarrhoea, then the cook died at sea and had to be winched up out of the galley, then the toilets on F-deck – which was my deck, unfortunately – all backed up and teams of sailors had to go below and scoop the sewage up with hairnets. And the Australians had the audacity to call us “whingeing poms”!
A final deadline I have terminal cancer. I really am going through hell. I can feel that at any moment I am going to die; it’s a terrible thing to feel. I am writing about the cruise that gave me wanderlust, because I’ve started the book of my life, called My Life on Earth. I’m weighing up, can I do the book? I feel like s*** every day but I have to keep going. The other book I am writing is called Coming Home to Die. This is the story of my cancer. I have written four novels and five non-fiction books.
Hedonistic Hong Kong My life really began when I arrived in Hong Kong. I felt like I came alive after I came off the docks in Kowloon. One minute I am a kid from Australia, the next minute I am sitting at my desk, and a guy walks in and puts a cardboard mat under my feet, scribbles around it, goes away and comes back two hours later with an absolute top-class pair of shoes. I was 23.
Hong Kong was all the things that one would like at [23]: there were great bars and nightclubs, life was one whirl of hedonism. It was the jumping off point to where and what I passionately wanted to be at that time – a war correspondent in Vietnam
Hong Kong was all the things that one would like at that age: there were great bars and nightclubs, life was one whirl of hedonism. It was the jumping off point to where and what I passionately wanted to be at that time – a war correspondent in Vietnam.
