Keep Moving or Die follows your unconventional journey through childhood upheaval, worldwide adventures, police photography, fatherhood, illness, and filmmaking. Where did the title Keep Moving or Die come from, and how well does it describe your approach to life?

Trying to find a title for a memoir that doesn’t sound corny or lame and yet reflect your life is difficult. Much harder than I expected to be honest, so I had no title until I was halfway through writing about my time photographing crime scenes for the Met Police. I’m a conversational writer, letting the reader into my life and suddenly into my mind. I found myself not chatting, but ranting, trying to explain to myself what has always pushed me. That inner drive to keep moving: pushing, creating, building, against an imaginary clock. Most people in the world seem to move very slowly compared to me. Maybe it’s a survival thing from growing up in care and wanting to make a better world for myself. Whatever it is, it’s a blessing and a curse. It gives me the grit and determination to finish a project, especially writing, but it also drives me nuts at times. I realised that I have this inner feeling, that I have to keep moving – and if I don’t, I’ll just grow old and die. Very dramatic, or should it be melodramatic? Whatever it is, it also sounded very Bond-like and therefore a good title. Hopefully it’ll be the name of the next Bond film when they get round to making it.

Has reinventing yourself throughout your life been deliberate, or have you simply been willing to follow opportunities when they appeared?

I never felt I was reinventing myself, more a case that I was taking opportunities when they arrived. I left school with no qualifications and no parents to fall back on, but I was blessed with a desire to be a creative photographer. By starting as a photographer’s assistant, to Colour printing manager to Cruise ships photographer, My identity was very much, PHOTOGRAPHER! Even when I joined the Met, I was still a photographer, just that I had to sell my artistic soul to keep a steady, well paid job. Re-inventing myself was only after leaving the Met and finally having to give up that identity. Now I’m a writer, author or work in film. It still sounds good (much more glamorous than it really is tbh) but it was difficult to leave the photographer identity behind. I still do headshots and still think in a very visual way, which helps my writing, so he’s still living in my mind somewhere. 

When did photography become more than an interest and begin shaping the direction of your life, and what has spending so much of your life behind a camera taught you about observing people?

I only got into photography because I had a friend at school who was into it. He convinced me to go to the photography classes once a week in our lunchtimes. I just loved it straight away. I think it annoyed my friend in the en, that I liked it and pushed forward with photography further than he ever did. Thank God I did find it though, as it was my only direction. It really did make me look at the world and push me to work abroad on cruise ships. As for observing people, it helped with writing my first book, The Many Lives of Adam Capello, as I could see that at heart, we all want to the same things. To love and be loved, to not have to worry about money, to see the world and experience the different art, architecture, customs, food and culture that makes everything so interesting. Religions, cults, politics and cultures, are all part of our social programming, the nurture that programs our nature.

What have you learned about balancing your restless desire for new experiences with your responsibility to the people you loved?

Family is the ultimate sacrifice. When we have children, we have to put all our dreams and desires aside – put them on hold for a good 20 years, when they are older and enjoying having them as wonderful young adults. But even now, it’s hard for me to think of moving away from them to live in a much bigger, nicer home in the countryside in a cheaper part of the country, or indeed, in a different country. So my experiences have moved from epic travels, to new challenges such as film work, running quizzes, pushing and writing the books. I’m still looking for anything new that takes my fancy. I’m still moving… but I’m trying to pace myself.

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