The one lesson I’ve learned from life

Frederick ForsyTh, 80, a former rAF pilot and foreign correspondent, is the author of novels including The day of The Jackal and The odessa File. he lives in Buckinghamshire with his second wife, sandy, and has two sons and four grandchildren.

IF YOU WANT AN INTERESTING LIFE, GO OUT AND GET ONE

MY DaYS of dodging bullets are well and truly over. Still, i’ve had an exciting life. i’ve seen around 70 countries, scubadived, gone game-fishing and been in a few firefights.

i’ve had exceptional luck to emerge without a scratch from some places. Bullets have missed me, bombs have fallen too far away to hurt me and mortars have landed almost at my feet.

i believe a young man or woman is dyestamped with their character between the ages of four and 18. in my case, the primordial influence in my boyhood was my father. he taught me his standards and they’ve never left me.

he told me: ‘Look, lad, you’ve only got one life. it’s not a rehearsal. not one hour will ever be repeated. Make up your mind, young, what kind of life you want to have, then go for it. Basically, there are two choices: interesting or dull.’ i said: ‘Well, obviously, interesting.’ he said: ‘You’ve got to go for it. it won’t drop in your lap.’

he had travelled himself — five years as a rubber planter in Malaysia — but was by then a shopkeeper, a furrier, in ashford, Kent. he liked the people he met on his travels, through the Middle East and asia, enormously. he taught me to never despise anybody because they are different. he would say: ‘ hate does very little, but if you must hate something, hate bigotry, because it causes so much pain.’

Of course, i’ve made mistakes. in the Eighties, i was beggared by a broker i had thought a friend. i lost £2.2 million and owed a further £ 1 million on a mortgage he’d suggested. i was 51 and had to start over entirely.

But i’ve never backed off. in the Sixties, when i thought the BBC was being dishonest in its reporting of the Biafran War — being a government mouthpiece, effectively — i quit my job to go back into the field independently.

My father’s advice — if you want an interesting life, bloody well go out and get one — was good. i did. and i’m glad i did. The Fox by Frederick Forsyth (Bantam Press, £20) is out in hardback.