OP Rory Copinger-Symes CBE has experienced many unique situations during his long and distinguished military career, a fact not lost on prolific best selling author, Lord Jeffrey Archer, as Rory relates below.

"I shan't bore you how it came about but I found myself on the phone with Lord Archer who set me the task. Essentially he said I need you to write me a piece to explain how the Royal Marines would rescue Princess Diana if she were taken hostage on a super yacht.  Jeffrey said he wanted lots of detail ("all the stuff you find boring but us civilians are fascinated by") and the scenario was based in the early 1990s with Princess Diana being taken hostage ("you tell me by whom and where"), and then tell me how you would rescue her!

A simple enough task and he gave me 10 weeks to write as much as I could. So having developed a host of fictional characters (closely based on characters I had known during my career!), and chosen the super yacht and Mallorca as the venue I went about building a story.  Key was all the detail Jeffrey wanted but I had to ensure it was all information that was available on the internet so as to avoid giving away any secrets.

After turning in my draft of about 70 pages Lord Archer then spent about a month digesting it before he came back and told me to cut it down to 10 pages and just focus on the rescue operation.  I duly went away and produced a shorter piece focused on how we might execute such a rescue at sea and returned it to him.  After another longer period Jeffrey then came back to me and we spent several hours with him telling me how the operation was to happen and me correcting him at any occasion if it was something we wouldn't have said or done.  In other words he was ensuring he had absorbed the details of the way in which we operate to ensure he was as authentic as possible.

Another longer period passed and then I received his initial draft which I was to go through and amend anything I felt was incorrect.  This done I then received a final editors draft so proof read.  Then about a year later through the post I receive the final hardback version duly signed by Lord Archer and soon after the book was published in late September 2022. 

So if you fancy a great read grab a copy - and no I don’t get any royalties!?"