Harry Benson was born in Glasgow in 1929. His first job as a press photographer was for a local paper, the Hamilton Advertiser, a job arrived at via stints as a cinema messenger delivering Pathé newsreels; a messenger for the film company Ilford, transporting X-ray films in a wheelbarrow around Glasgow; a cook in the RAF; and a wedding photographer.
He was quickly drawn to the competitive world of Fleet Street newspapers, and with a mix of persistence and providence typical of Benson, was given his first assignment by the Daily Sketch in 1958. He was asked to cover a murder on the fifth tee of a golf course in East Kilbride. (The corpse, it later transpired, was the most recent victim of the notorious mass murderer, Peter Manuel.) His first assignment would turn out to be an exclusive; an exclusive that would turn out to be the first of many.
From the Daily Sketch, Benson soon moved to the Express. Already, he was developing a forensic eye for creating memorable pictures of the defining personalities and events of the moment.
