Nowadays everyone has a camera and the Internet means everything is instantly accessible. Unlike some photographers, I don't see this as a problem. If anything interesting happens in the world today, there will be someone around to record it.

To me, the counterculture was always what I grew up with the hippies in the late '60s. But, however you define it, it's really the excesses of youth and it's something that everyone goes through to some extent. Or if they don't, they should do.

Anyway, the fetish crowd, compared to some of the people that hung out with the skinheads, was all pussycats.

The reason why so many of my photographs in the book were taken in stairwells and corridors was that that was the only bit of spare space available and, in some cases, the only place where there was enough light to see anything. Even then, it was often so dark that I couldn't tell which gender my subject was (not that I particularly cared) and too dark, before the era of autofocus, to focus. I had to find a light (or carry a torch) and pre-focus.

In the age of social media, you have the selfie and some people - not always young people - seem obsessed with showing the world what their face looks like almost every day. Just like some people are obsessed with showing the world what their dinner looks like. It's beyond my understanding to be honest.

That's one of the wonderful things about the whole process of photography - eye contact can be very revealing.

When I gave up my office job and became a full-time professional photographer, my fortunes certainly improved markedly. We moved away from the council estate into our own house and for the first time in my life, I had a little spare money.