The veteran photographer discusses the violence of his early years, celebrity culture – and why he's off to a war zone at 77

In the documentary that's just been made about your work – McCullin – you say you've had enough of war, yet by the time this interview is published you will have been to Syria.

I know. I'm going to cover the war in Aleppo. I'm pestered from morning to night in Somerset and I just want to get away from it.

You could go to the Caribbean instead.

I'd be even more bored. I haven't been to Syria for a decade, since the Gulf war started. And I'm going right back to the place where I crossed over the border 10 years ago. I ask myself: why am I giving up all this comfort to go and sleep in a derelict house and slosh around the Turkish border with poor old refugees? I just want to keep in touch with myself. I don't want to become complacently comfortable. If I don't keep prodding myself at my age – I'll be 78 at my next birthday – I'm going to get Alzheimer's; I've already had massive heart problems and surgery. You've got to keep in touch with yourself; you've got to remind yourself that there's still something left. And I'm going with a really great Times correspondent, Anthony Loyd.

I've read his autobiography and in it he makes a comparison between war reporting and being addicted to heroin.

He's kind of right in some way, I'm not going to deny it. There was an adrenaline rush when you did it. But it was more exciting when you survived.

He doesn't sound like the most stable character…

No, he's a bit wild, Anthony. He came to my house in a flak jacket and helmet.There's some builders working on my house and they couldn't get over it.

Do you think that some people are drawn to cover wars, because there is some damage in themselves that they are looking to express?

I think because I've done it for so long, I've got over that. Most of the people I know, their marriages went down the drain, like mine, something I am not proud of. But you know… photography mustn't be forgotten here. I love photography. I love the imagery. I love what I do.

It was the Observer that gave you your great break, wasn't it?

Yes, and I think I gave them something, too. They gave me the space and I gave them the pictures. We can both share in saying that's where my life started. And thankfully it did because I didn't know anything but violence. I was dyslexic and uneducated and left school at 14. I grew up in Finsbury Park, which was a pretty bad place where you had to fight and be beaten. It was just a constant roundabout of violence.

What comes across strongly in the film is that you were there during the glory days of journalism. What do you think of photojournalism these days?

It's had it. Nobody wants to look at spreads of dying children. They want to see higher heels. It's all gone celebrity, hasn't it? Celebrity, looks, fashion. If I see another picture of Gwyneth Paltrow, I think I'll put my head down the lavatory. Fake tans, Beckhams, Jamie Oliver. I can't take any more of it. That's why I'm going to Syria.

One of the striking things in the film is your own moral confusion. That you constantly questioned your own role.

I had to really, because I made a name out of it. But not a day goes by when I don't think about my moral obligations. In the beginning, I thought it was exciting. But then, when I started seeing the children dying in the Biafran war, I saw that I'd got it all wrong. It made me see things in another way. There's nothing I don't know about war. The stench of it. But I say that without any pride. War is a terrible thing. My hope is that you'll get that through looking at one of my pictures.

You talk in the film about how much your family suffered.

I was always waving goodbye to my family. And I always thought that I had the bigger priority. And I was so wrong, wasn't I? I might be quite jolly talking to you now, but one carries a great deal of guilt. I survived. But my wife didn't. I left my wife for somebody else and she died on our son's wedding day. I saw her body being carried downstairs past my son's wedding presents in a body bag like I used to see in Vietnam.

You've remarried and have another young son. Do you worry about leaving them?

My wife thinks I'm stark raving mad. How many pensioners do you know who are going off to Aleppo? I've got terrible feet and arthritic joints. I'm not going to be able to run from the bullet. I'll be the best target going.

Has she tried to dissuade you?

She said to me the other day, "I don't know why you are doing this." And I didn't say, "To try and get away from you." You know sometimes you just want to get away with the boys.

But you must have used up so many lives. Luck runs out.

I had a stroke on a train one day. I was with my wife and my son, and I said to my wife, "My face is going funny", and she said, "Oh, you're all right. You're just tired." And suddenly the hand went. I knew what was happening. I always thought it was the stress of war, but it turns out to be all the cream buns I've eaten over the years.

You talk about how in the film you are haunted by the things you have seen.

Some of the memories are so fresh it's as if it happened yesterday. That battle in Vietnam: two weeks of seeing tanks running over bodies and turning them into Persian carpets and things like that. It's as fresh as a fresh bread roll to me today.

The British countryside, you say, has been your sanctuary.

It's been my salvation. I've always loved the countryside. Even as a kid I used to abscond from school, go to the end of the Cockfosters line and into the country to look at the birds' eggs and grass snakes. I bought a house near where I was evacuated as a child, and I've never looked back. I got really passionate about doing landscapes.

Do you think about dying? Would you prefer to be in bed at home? Or in the saddle trying to get one last great shot?

Since I nearly died on that Paddington train, I'm not afraid of it now. And now I've got to this age. My father died at the age of 40 from chronic asthma and heart failure. My wife died at 48. I've got to 77. I can't really argue about that.

McCullin is released on 1 January