This little booklet, inspired by and dedicated to my two grandchildren, consists of a series of anecdotes in which I recall events and personalities during my 25 years of military service and thereafter, with the odd white-knuckle episode, making the most of the dying embers of the British Empire.
I am now in my 87th year, ostensibly fit and well, but kept alive by a handful of pills and a pacemaker and writing this seemed a daunting task, but it kept me sane through the desolation of a recent double bereavement compounded by the pandemic lockdown.
Commissioned into the Royal Artillery, I studied languages, in particular Arabic and spent my army career in a number of postings, some of them hair-raising, some idyllic and some hilarious, mainly in the Middle East.
After retiring as a major in 1978 I joined British industry as a salesman and continued my sojourns into the Middle East, before finally becoming a freelance translator.