Paul Conroy: 'The Funniest, Most Beautiful Man To Be In Hell With'
John Sweeney remembers his friend and colleague, the celebrated war photographer, Paul Conroy
No surprises for who stole the show at last October’s ‘Vladimir Putin: Do Fuck Off!’ Festival in Kyiv. War photographer Paul Conroy answered a question about drones from the former British diplomat, Arthur Snell, in his trademark guttural Scouse: “Ironically, with all of this high-tech development, when you spend time down in the grey zone, turns out one of the best defences against these super high tech machines is a twelve gauge shotgun. We need the British aristocracy down in Kramatorsk with some pate and some Pimms. The skies would be clear in a week.”
Paul, who died on Saturday from a heart attack, aged 61, was the funniest, most beautiful man to be in hell with, bar none.
On Twitter after his death the outpouring of love for “Gunner Conroy” was a thing to behold: behind his mask of Liverpudlian wit lay a stern moral compass. A fabulous hell-raiser, with a love of drink, women and an evil vape the size of the Isle of Wight, he was a devil forever on the side of the angels.
Famously, he and his great partner in journalistic crime, Marie Colvin, got themselves smuggled into Homs, Syria, by riding on motorbikes down a sewer for three miles to tell the world about Bashar Al-Assad’s monstrous crimes. Infamously, the Syrian regime targeted Marie’s satphone. She and French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik were killed outright. Paul was left more dead than alive and the Syrian opposition doctors planned to amputate a leg. Paul, who had learned his battlefield medicine in the Royal Artillery, pleaded with them to spare him the knife. The opposition smuggled him out of Homs, back down the sewer they had come in by. In Turkey, he was met by someone from the British Government who said: “Ah, Mr Conroy, we heard it turned a bit fruity back there.”
In Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, he risked life and limb time and again to tell truth to evil. What was so fucking wonderful about Paul is that he did it with a grin as broad as the Mersey. Telling the world about human misery can be miserable; Paul’s lens was lit with laughter. His group of friends was extraordinary, from Islamist doctors in Homs to Joss Stone to a rag-taggle of war reporters to Camilla, Queen of England, from whom he used to cadge “ciggies” whenever they met. Together, Queen and Scouser would give the footmen the slip and nick out the back for a quick fag while no-one was looking.
Paul was born in 1964 in Liverpool – he supported the Reds throughout his life – to Les Conroy and his wife Joan. Les worked for MI5, monitoring Communist influence in Liverpool docks. Paul had a sharp mind and was forever intellectually curious but he and school didn’t get on. A musician of serious talent, he ended up joining the Royal Artillery and became a spotter, a kind of elite position but right at the front line. After a time he became bored with army life but, because he was a good soldier, he was refused permission to leave early. So he hid some cannabis in his quarters and then wrote an anonymous letter, grassing himself up and was sentenced to nine months in the military prison or Glasshouse in Colchester. Bored out of his mind in the nick, he plotted digging an escape tunnel but that fell through.
Out in the big bad world, he teamed up with Joss Stone, helping her travel the world playing gigs and working on his own music. Multi-talented, Paul used his skills with a camera to walk into the highly competitive world of war photography and teamed up with one of the very best war reporters, Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times. The pair met when Paul had been trying to ford a river to get into Saddam-controlled Iraq. To do so, he built his own boat, crossed the river and was sent straight back by the authorities with a flea in his ear – and the hostility of fellow journalists who resented his initiative. Marie came into the hotel where the press pack was hanging out and asked: “Where’s Boatman?”
Together, they reported on the struggle to bring down Gaddafi’s moronic tyranny in Libya, then moved to opposition Syria. When Vladimir Putin backed Bashar Al-Assad, the vast majority of foreign journalists left the country. Paul and Marie headed the opposite way, into trouble. After Marie was killed, Paul recovered in hospital in London where the surgeons dug out an extravagant amount of metal from his body. He bore all these crosses with his customary humour. When Hollywood made A Private War about Marie’s life and killing, Paul was played by the Irish actor, James Dornan. Typically, they became firm friends.
Come the big war against Ukraine in 2022, Paul moved to the country and photographed and filmed Russia’s serial war crimes. He set up an initiative backed by the Frontline Club to teach the country’s journalists battlefield common sense. Grinning wolfishly, Paul said: “And then at the tea break, these Ukrainian journalists start Googling me and they realise that the guy who is teaching them to be cautious rode a motorbike down a sewer for three miles to get into Homs. And then they go: ‘What the fuck!’”
We worked together for the first and only time in February, 2023, making Under Deadly Skies, filmed by Caolan Robertson, about Russia’s evil war against civilians. Caolan was a newbie to war and jumped every time an artillery shell went boom. Paul told him with a smile on his face to get used to it. When a cluster bomb landed nearby, the team hit the deck, Paul sucking on his vape the whole time. Paul’s training in the Royal Artillery and his experience in some of the world’s worst war zones made him extraordinarily good company in bad places.
I last saw Paul at the celebration in Kyiv for Caolan marrying his boyfriend in November. He was his normal self, funny, wry, thoughtful, his heart committed to the wretched of the earth. And his vape.
His last gig was for Byline Times, reporting on and taking photographs of Cuba. While visiting family in Devon, he suffered a heart attack.
The community of war reporters is used to loss but it’s a heavy thought that the next time I’m somewhere pretty grim, the door won’t open to reveal Paul standing there, with a grin in his eyes and a vape on his lips.
RIP old friend.