Writing Worth Reading
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Writing Worth Reading
This is the one where James Bond has to go out to Jamaica and investigates the disappearance of Strangways, the head of Station J in Kingston. What I really like about all his books is the attention to detail. It was all based on his experiences when he worked for naval intelligence during the war.
I know you are a big Ian Fleming fan so let’s talk about your second choice, Doctor No, which was one of your early inspirations.
Well, this is the one where James Bond has to go out to Jamaica and investigates the disappearance of Strangways, the head of Station J in Kingston. What I really like about all his books is the attention to detail. It was all based on his experiences when he worked for naval intelligence during the war. He could use terminology like Sit Rep. Many people had never heard of Sit Rep before but in Special Forces if you want to know what’s going on in a place you ask for a Sit Rep, which means a situation report. And then there is all the specialised equipment which you can get from Q. We have the same set-up in the SAS called Ops Research, where all new gadgets are tested and demonstrated and taken out into the field to be used, so he really was writing from real life experience.
How did he inspire you?
Well, it didn’t make me want to be in M16. You have to be pretty intelligent and a public school boy for that. I just had a standard education. But it certainly inspired me to want to go out and have an adventure. When I first heard of the SAS when I was out in the Middle East in the 1960s it sounded as near to that kind of James Bond lifestyle that you could get.
Pete Winner, codenamed Soldier ‘I’, spent 18 years in the SAS and survived the savage battle of Mirbat, parachuted into the icy depths of the South Atlantic at the height of the Falklands War, and stormed the Iranian Embassy in London during the hostage crisis 30 years ago. He says MI6 is for the public school boys, and the SAS is for men with an ordinary education who have the strength and determination to seek adventure, survive and come back smiling. He describes his work as involving no publicity, no media. ‘We move in silently, do our job, and melt away into the background.’
