Val McCalla was an angry man with a mission when I first met him in 1981. He turned up at the East End News, where I was editor, to find out why his teenage son David was bunking off school to take pictures for us.

He was fascinated by what he found in our chaotic Bethnal Green office, and soon his enthusiasm matched that of his son. He offered his services as a book-keeper to help with the accounts. Socially, Val was kind, courteous and rather timid. There was little of the radical about him.