Denis Slee

Born Middlesbrough 1948 with big Italian connection of ice cream makers and singers. My grandfather made the gates to Stewart's Park and chains for boats: by hand. My uncle Arthur made ocean going wooden yachts on the Tees by hand, too! Moved to Leeds when 11. Played football and climbed trees. Went to Grammar School. Hated it. Got Expelled for truancy. Also got thrown out of the orchestra, in assembly, for playing a Kinks song on
me chello. Got job in bank. Wonderful..... Left. Hitchhiked to Paris at 17 and slept on the banks of the Seine. Came home. Worked as a vegetable buyer for Safe-ways. Worked briefly in music industry as personal minder to Peter Green. Founder of Fleetwood Mac. He went mad and I went home. Then went to Art School to study Graphics and Photography. Learnt nowt. Took up truck driving: great, got to see Europe and paid. Met girl. Hitch hiked from Leeds to Deli. Marvellous all the way. Crossed the desserts of Afghanistan with Coochi nomads. On camels and sleeping in carpet tents. Eating mutton in apricots under the stars. I have a knife given to me by them. Photographed the Himalayas in India, Nepal and Le Daq. Worked running a restaurant in Kabul called the Cable Hogue off Chicken Street for 18 months when Afghanistan was the most wonderful place in the world. All my Afghan friends are dead! Came home, again. Took up driving trucks again. Met girl so went back to taking pics. Went to Cambodia when it was impossible to get in. I'm the only person who has photographs of this time with no visa on my passport. Scary, to sneak in, but fun. I like danger. Went to photograph the injured, amputee children of that lovely land. What have those kids done? Couldn't make money from that. How can you? Went swimming. Took pictures of trees. Sent home again by Bobby Neal Adams. New York war photographer. (Check his site.) Started working as freelance photographer again. In Wind surfing, toured Europe with kids in Van doing this. Busking too. Great. Spent time doing many sports stuff mainly cycling and surfing, as is fun. Moved to The Bay and made book: "Robin Hood's Bay Through the Eye of a Fish." Currently working on new book' My Live as a Baboon." Just travel stuff.