Afternoon of 4 February 2012 on Mohamed Mahmoud Street Egyptian CSF fire tear gas canisters in to a large crowd of protesters gathered near the Costa Cafe around 300 metres from the Ministry of Interior which lies around the corner of Mansour Street (top right).

This area is situated about half a kilometre east of Tahrir Square in Downtown Cairo. There were many people badly affected by the gas. I saw one man in convulsions.

Initially the gas would create confusion and chaos and sometimes serious symptoms ranging from extreme discomfort - watery eyes, skin burns, coughing to more dangerous reactions requiring immediate medical intervention and all too frequently resulting in fatalities.

But despite the dangers Egypt's youth appeared to be almost addicted to tear gas. They would defy the riot police again and again by returning to the same place as soon as it cleared.

Demonstrators would see it as a victory to be able to return again to the same location. The smell and eerie smoke clouds drifting slowly across the streets adding a surreal almost religious like initiation experience for the new protester.

For young men born into poverty and with little obvious chance to gain employment, they could feel, if only just once in a lifetime, that they mattered - that while others chatted about the struggle for freedom in the safe privacy of their homes - they were the ones putting their lives on the line in the street. Their actions were making Egypt's history and defining its' future.

The next day, after this photograph was taken 5 February, I was arrested about 100 metres from this spot in an alleyway off Falaki Street. I spent the next 54 days in prison before being deported to the U.K.