Corgi • Adventure / thriller

If by 'write' you mean creative fiction (I was a journalist for twelve years before turning to novels) it was in January 1970 that I sat down to write what became titled 'The Day of the Jackal'. It was my first attempt at fiction. I had little idea I cold even tell a story, but I had to give it a try because I was flat broke!! The basic outlines of the story I worked out as a sort of mental 'what if' while in Paris in 1962/63, reporting for Reuters as the OAS really tried (and failed) to kill De Gaulle. I just thought an imported professional would do better.

Who or what has influenced you the most?

My father, but not as a writer. I still think he was the most decent, kind, honest and tolerant man I have known, and try to treat others on this planet with me as he would have done. He started as a working class dockyard kid from Chatham and almost self-taught. But he was a real gent.

What are the top five books in your genre / Who are your top 5 authors?

When it comes to thrillers there are scores of top writers now, and thousands of that genre of book. But the Brits were the inventors and pioneers. So Wilkie Collins with the first 'thriller' as we would recognise the word: 'The Lady in White'. Erskine Childers with 'The Riddle of the Sands'. Any early John Buchan. Any early Eric Ambler (he got espionage out of the gentlemen's club and into the back alleys where it really takes place). 'Rogue Male' by Geoffrey Household (an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a sniper rifle.) 'The Spy who cam in from the Cold' - John le Carre's Cold War classic.

Where did you grow up, how did this influence you?

I was lucky; a great boyhood in the fields and lanes of rural East Kent. Right in Darling Buds of May country. Fields, orchards, the smell of roasting hops on the air in season. Like many country boys I had to leave for the city to make a career. But despite having travelled to every corner of the earth, I have never lost what was instilled in those years: a fierce love of this country and its beautiful countryside.

What is the most interesting job you've ever had and why?

The word 'interesting' must, I suppose, refer to the way you saw it at the time, because tastes change over fifty years. When I was eighteen, lifting a Vampire single-seat jet off the tarmac for the first time was heaven come true. At twenty-three landing in Paris to find crisis and near civil war as terrorists tried and tried to kill the president, and me in the middle of it, was enough to set the pulses racing. Communist East Germany, civil war in Africa ...... all had their moments. Tapping out novels in a farm in Hertfordshire pays better, but it is pretty samey. On the other hand, I'm too old and slow to go racing up and down the Afghan mountains. I leave those excitements to the youngsters now!

What are you reading at the moment?

I have just finished THE LIBERATORS by Robert Harvey, the true history of the six men who liberated Central and South America from the Spanish empire. Next comes GULAG by Anne Applebaum.

Name your top five web sites.

I don't have a computer so I never get square-eyed.

What is your favourite TV moment of this century so far?

The Golden Jubilee twelve months ago. That great tidal wave of humanity surging up The Mall at the end proved the Old Country is not a bloodless Euro-Region just yet. And after the Hate Britain brigade had confidently predicted no one would show up!!

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?

Scuba diving coral reefs and watching the fish, is my main hobby, even though I have to travel across the world for the best dive-sites. After that, deep-sea big-game fishing (also tropical waters.) Here at home, reading, walking the dogs, dining with good mates and amusing conversation.

What would you like as your epitaph?

I would prefer to be buried at sea. No tomb, no ashes, no epitaph.