Andy McNab

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

Elements of this program may offend or upset some listeners.

Speaker 30:12

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

Mike Osway this week is a soldier and an author. Abandoned as a baby on the steps of Guy's Hospital in London, he was adopted by a family in South London. As a young boy, he drifted into a life of minor crime, ending up in Borstel, from which he was released on condition he joined the army. It was a life-changing moment. He became the complete soldier, eventually joining the SAS.

Presenter0:53

In 1991, he led a covert operations team behind enemy lines in Iraq with a mission to destroy Saddam's main underground command links. He was captured and he was tortured, but eventually released. His book about the expedition, Bravo 20, is a worldwide bestseller and has been followed by half a dozen novels featuring a retired Special Forces agent that have made their author a multi-millionaire. He's also the perfect radio interviewee. He doesn't allow the public to see his face for fear of reprisals. If I hadn't joined the army, he says, I'd be in prison now. He is Andy McNabb. It's as simple as that, is it? Your natural talents could have taken you either way.

Andy McNab1:33

I think so. I I certainly living in South London it the the horizons were always quite limited. You know, it wasn't about getting to school, getting an education, it was about sort of short-term gain. And uh the way to do that was was just to get into crime because you tended to look up to the people in the estates that were involved with crime because they, you know, they had the second hand car, they were sorted out.

Presenter1:50

The

Presenter1:54

So what are the two things in common then? If if if it's the life of crime and then the life in the army, it's the same thing, is it? It's learning how to well, in the SAS anyway, learning how to burgle, to infiltrate, to cheat, to

Andy McNab2:04

It's sort of an aptitude and taking advantage of situations. Because if you've got the aptitude to do those things and to learn and to blend into environments, which normally it's sort of the people like myself who've come from sort of housing stakes or whatever found quite easy, they can fill you up with all the the information you need and the skills to actually do your job, but blend in. Because the way that Special Air Service works is that you're left on your own to get on with the job and that you know, and that's what all selection is about, trying to get it. That's what you like, isn't it? Absolutely. And no one can tell you what to do. All they're interested in is the end result. So that's quite nice.

Speaker 12:14

Uh

Presenter2:14

Yeah.

Speaker 12:14

Uh

Presenter2:36

And that's what you like, isn't it? Absolutely.

Presenter2:41

So it

Presenter2:43

But just going back to when you first joined the army, what you liked then, I I I get the impression anyway, is that sense of camaraderie and that sense of routine,'cause it was not something you'd ever had in your life.

Andy McNab2:52

Absolutely. For me it was it was the simple things as well. Um clean sheets every Tuesday, constant hot water and your own bed space. You know, by army law there's a certain amount of area that you get. You get your own locker, you get you know, the whole

Presenter3:04

Baths, showers

Andy McNab3:05

Baths, showers. I used to undo the nozzle on the shower so it just used to come down as a as a complete sort of lot of water and uh get one of those fold away plastic chairs and just sit there for an hour. Do you use the hot water?

Presenter3:15

Because it was something you'd never had.

Andy McNab3:16

I thought it was great.

Presenter3:17

You didn't have that at home in any manner.

Andy McNab3:19

No. We we used to wash from the the the kitchen sink, um,'cause there wasn't a a bathroom. And I couldn't understand why other kids were feeling homesick and, you know, or or wanted to get out. I thought it was great.

Presenter3:31

Tell me about your first record.

Andy McNab3:33

It's a clash and uh shall I stay or should I go? And it's uh

Andy McNab3:38

It was a song that was used on the BBC film of Bravito Zero. And certainly the.

Andy McNab3:43

The story of should I stay, should I go was for me was quite personal because I had the decision on that last night in Iraq trying to escape. Should I stay in Iraq for that night before trying to cross the border to Syria? Or stay and hide up to use the best of the following night? And I made the wrong decision because I got caught.

Presenter4:04

Darling, you got to let me know.

Presenter4:08

Should I stay or sh

Speaker 14:10

Should I go?

Speaker 14:13

If you say that you are mine.

Speaker 14:17

I'll be here till the end of time.

Speaker 14:21

So you got to let me know

Speaker 14:26

Should I stay alone?

Presenter4:26

Or should I go?

Presenter4:30

Clash and should I stay or should I go? Let's talk about that mission, Andy McNabb, Bravo 20, um, that changed your life. That was the call sign, the radio frequency, which turned out to be completely duff anyway. That was the first mistake.

Andy McNab4:41

Yes, it was, yeah, yeah. It was um the the the frequencies that we were given for the radio were for the uh what we call the southern footprint of of Iraq and going into Saudi, but we were north west of Baghdad.

Presenter4:42

Yeah, it was

Presenter4:51

The second mistake, well, probably the first, you were landed too close to that list. Yeah, yeah, so it's

Andy McNab4:54

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Presenter4:56

And there were eight of you. Yeah. And suddenly, then, after two days, you were discovered. Just describe to me how you were discovered.

Andy McNab5:01

Well we was in uh in in our hide and trying to look for the fiber optic cable. It was mid afternoon and uh uh we could hear the vehicles moving backwards and forwards on the m the main supply route in north west over there.

Presenter5:12

He was so close.

Andy McNab5:13

So close, yeah. And then all of a sudden we heard a lot of goats and then this small boy, you know, I don't know, seven, eight years old, probably less than that, was herding the goats away and he looked down at us, we looked at him, you know, his eyes came up like saucers. So he went running off towards the Iraqi

Presenter5:28

Yeah, but but before that you'd seen him come you knew he was coming you had to pray he didn't see you.

Andy McNab5:31

You have to pray he didn't see you. No, absolutely. And it was quite a while before he did see us because he was concentrating on the goats.

Presenter5:36

But when he did see you,

Presenter5:39

Should you not have killed him?

Andy McNab5:40

No, it doesn't it doesn't work like that. It's um you can look at it in two ways. You can look at it from the the moral point which one of the patrol members, Dinger, put it right, he says, Well, we're the special S or it's the SAS as opposed to the S S. But actually if you look at it from a tactical point of view, um if you shoot him, you you give away your position anyway,'cause Iraq is wherever he's

Presenter5:55

So you've got to do it silently.

Andy McNab5:57

Absolutely. If you but then if you kill him, what happens is that everything we take in on an operation we take out because you might have to go back there again. So we would literally have a dead weight to take with us. Um the nearest one to the to this uh to this boy, try to get hold of him. But the fact is, uh, as I said before, you wouldn't get it.

Presenter6:15

What could he have done if he hadn't?

Andy McNab6:16

Well actually we get him down there, we strap him up and uh we keep him quiet and we take him with us. So when we get to our emergency pick up point we just leave him. You know, the the fact is he would

Presenter6:24

No.

Andy McNab6:26

It'd be traumatized, but it'd still be alive. And there's also the point that if you start killing the local population.

Andy McNab6:32

If you do get caught, you stand no chance of survival. So there's obviously the moral point, but also there's a real tactical reason why you don't.

Presenter6:39

So you don't look back and think, if only we killed him.

Andy McNab6:39

So you don't look

Andy McNab6:42

No, well look back and think if only we caught him, but he was too quick.

Presenter6:45

But he was too quick.

Andy McNab6:51

I'm just

Speaker 16:51

Uh

Presenter6:54

It's claimed, and you were eight men. It's claimed you killed 250 well, you claim you killed 250 Iraqi soldiers.

Andy McNab7:01

Well in fact it's the the CIA's uh report that came back.

Presenter7:05

How did you do that?

Andy McNab7:06

Well, you just get on with it because you wanna you wanna get away.

Presenter7:09

What part does fear play in all of this? Is it is there time and space for it?

Andy McNab7:13

Yeah, very much so. And it it's a it's an important component. Everybody is scared. They say they're not scared, they're liars or they're mentally deficient and they shouldn't be doing that job anyway. But the things that get you over the fear is being a professional soldier. So there's your experience, your training and certainly the knowledge of, you know, you know your own capabilities and even more importantly the capabilities of the enemy. And we don't even call them enemy, we call them players.

Andy McNab7:38

Require number two.

Andy McNab7:40

It's In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. When I came back after the First Gulf War, I was given this RAF video and they were playing this song In the Air Tonight to all the target acquisition pictures that we all saw on the news as they were doing the nighttime bombing raids and this song just really sort of reminds me of the Gulf War.

Presenter8:04

I can be ahead. Come on. In the air tonight.

Presenter8:10

Oh yeah,

Presenter8:14

And I've been waiting for this over.

Presenter8:17

Bro my duck

Presenter8:20

Hold on.

Presenter8:24

Uh

Speaker 18:24

Yeah.

Presenter8:24

Uh

Speaker 18:24

How you feel it? Coming in the early night

Presenter8:31

Phil Collins and In the Air Tonight V Tune the British Tornado Squadron's video of the First Gulf War.

Presenter8:38

You didn't die, Andy McNabb. You were captured and you were tortured for six weeks. I mean your teeth were smashed with rifle butts, cigarettes were stubbed out on you. The pain was obviously horrendous.

Speaker 18:43

But

Presenter8:50

There was something else there that was pretty horrible. You were made to clean out a block latrine with your bare hands, weren't you? And um well you tell me what

Andy McNab8:59

Yes, well and uh and instead of washing my hands I have to lick it off.

Andy McNab9:03

It was all really uh you know to do with the guards, you know, when the when the cat's away, the the the mice are going to play. I thought, well, okay, that's fine, you know, I'll be sick, I'll do all that, but I'm still alive. And they become

Presenter9:15

You get hepatitis.

Andy McNab9:16

Yes, I did. I got hepatitis, yeah. But they became minor problems w for me certainly at that time was wondering, well, actually, you know, w will I will I get out of here? Because there certainly wasn't any prisoner releases or any of the official prisoner of war um uh protocols or something.

Presenter9:30

The Geneva Convention was not a piece of paper that floated around, so I suppose how does that make you react then when you've heard more recently about these accounts of American cruelty to Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib?

Andy McNab9:33

No.

Andy McNab9:43

Well, the same as everybody else. I think that if you're going into a situation like that, you've got to be better than uh the people that you're replacing because otherwise you lose credibility. And that is what's happened. These

Andy McNab9:56

Images have become the the the militant's best recruiting campaign ever and uh it just becomes totally counterproductive.

Presenter10:03

But y y y you know, you must have identified in some way with those Iraqis who suffered at the hands of the America.

Andy McNab10:09

Oh, very much so. Very much so. In fact, um uh when I was there last time I I met two people who were in Abu Ghraib um Iraqis at the same time I was there.

Presenter10:16

That's where you were, was it? Yes.

Andy McNab10:17

Yes, I I spent uh it was about three weeks in Ebergrad. The first uh um three weeks was spent in uh an interrogation center in in Baghdad, and then I was moved to Ebergrad.

Presenter10:25

Hmm.

Presenter10:26

How do you protect yourself then? I mean, what you're what you were saying earlier was that you you've got to keep your brain separate from the pain, if you like. That's that's what you're trying to protect, is it? Your integrity?

Andy McNab10:33

That's what you're trying to do.

Andy McNab10:35

Absolutely.

Andy McNab10:36

Yeah.

Presenter10:36

They can't get in there.

Andy McNab10:37

Yeah. I think an important part of resistance to interrogation training is listening to other people's experiences. And it's actually not as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Presenter10:45

Yes, you have.

Andy McNab10:47

Yes, you have cover stories and also emotionally, it wasn't a hard thing to do mentally purely because you know those people that you're trying to protect.

Presenter10:55

But physically it took its toll and it took you months after you were released to recover, didn't it? I mean and did you have any therapy? Do do you have post-traumatic stress syndrome? How what's your view on all this?

Andy McNab10:58

Desk.

Andy McNab11:05

No, um I I think that that post-traumatic stress syndrome does does exist. I think there was two sessions where an RAF um psychologist came down and um we done uh the this there's a world famous stress test, I can't even remember the name of it now, and you just tick quickly as you're going down. And um he was scoring worse than we were because he was thinking about getting the R out of the RAF anyway because he's not valued.

Presenter11:28

Isn't the truth of that that you turned out to be more balanced afterwards on that test than than before?

Andy McNab11:33

Yeah.

Andy McNab11:34

It was

Presenter11:34

Yeah.

Andy McNab11:34

It was quite interesting.

Presenter11:35

A bit of torture did you good.

Andy McNab11:37

Did he? Then we're good. And and you know, you know, six months later was back on operations again, back in the Middle East.

Presenter11:42

Record number three.

Andy McNab11:44

Is Dave Bowie and Sweet Thing from the album Diamond Dogs? It was the very first album that I bought, and I must have been about 13 or 14. And it was all about trying to go out with a girl that I fancied called Fame or Call. I didn't have a record player in the house anyway, you know, the family didn't have one. But it was very sort of hip to have this new Dave Bowie, who's he sort of thing. And the plan was to say, well, I've got this record, should we go and play it in your house? And so we got to play it in her house, but that's as far as it went.

Presenter12:12

You see that I'm scared and I'm lonely. So I'll break up my room and yawn and I'll run to the center range.

Presenter12:27

Annoying what you said

Presenter12:31

It's a sick thing.

Presenter12:36

Yeah.

Andy McNab12:39

It's just leave!

Presenter12:43

Davy Bowie with Sweet Thing and memories of being an adolescent and fancying a girl called Faye. This was South London, Peckham, where you were brought up and, as we said earlier, fell into a life of minor crime. You were sort of suggesting that that was inevitable. Is that because the family was so poor or because life was sort of unstable? I mean the family moved around a lot, didn't it? Very much so, yeah. You know, the electricity bill wasn't paid or maybe the rent wasn't paid. I don't know. What what I mean, what did your parents do?

Andy McNab13:03

Very much so, yeah.

Andy McNab13:05

Was it paid or

Andy McNab13:07

Yeah, I don't know.

Andy McNab13:09

Um they'd they'd done a bit of everything. My my dad was as you know, he's been a cook, um used to make those big furry nylon mats, um uh plastic moulder, a window cleaner or whatever, wherever the work is. And so is my mum. My mum you know would work in a laundromat or the chocolate factory or a cleaning job in an office cleaning at night. Uh and it was all that sort of wherever you could get the work.

Presenter13:31

But were there I mean, do you remember happy times at home with your mum?

Andy McNab13:35

Huh?

Presenter13:35

Uh

Andy McNab13:36

Yeah, I th yeah, I I think in in general I think certainly looking back now, you used to moan a lot but you know because you didn't have this, whatever it may be, the in thing of the the day. Uh but actually I was I was left

Andy McNab13:47

Alone, quite a lot to get on with things, which I enjoyed. I liked that very much. So

Presenter13:51

Like they've

Presenter13:54

But it was pretty basic, as Anson. I mean, didn't you end up cooking on the electric fire?

Andy McNab13:58

Yes, yes. So we when we we had the the gas cut off once and the electric was on, I must say, I don't know, maybe about six or seven, my mum turned the electric fire on its back so the elements were facing up and uh she cooked uh teddy bear's porridge, which is basically you know milk and uh sugar and bread. I thought it was great, I thought it was very exciting. We had that for about two weeks.

Presenter14:19

At s at some point she told you you were adopted, didn't she?

Andy McNab14:21

Yes, when I was sixteen, yeah.

Presenter14:23

Yeah, and you'd been left, as I said in the introduction, in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital. I believe it was a Harrods carrier bag. It was Harrod's carrier bag. Was it? Yes, it was, yeah, yeah. Very unfortunate. Very good carrier bag to be left in. Did you and did she tell you, did she know who your parents were? Did anyone?

Andy McNab14:27

Yeah.

Andy McNab14:30

It was Harold's character. Was it? Yes, it was.

Andy McNab14:32

Very good.

Andy McNab14:38

Well, the the the as as much as my uh my parents know now is is is that uh um my dad was a a Greek immigrant in the fifties and and was involved in sort of wine bars and cafes, that s that sort of thing, and no idea about my uh my mother.

Presenter14:53

Record number four.

Andy McNab14:55

His uh baggy trousers by uh Madness and uh it reminds me of the Army, a lot of the Northern Ireland tours that I'd done in the infantry battalion, but also at the same time sort of the if you like childhood and it's you know, it's a rosy view of childhood, but yeah, it's it's not far off the mark.

Speaker 115:08

Naughty boys in nasty schools, headmasters breaking all the rules Having fun and playing fools, smashing out the wood run tools All the critters in the pub Casting man are ready rub Trying not to think of when the lunchtime bell will ring again Oh what fun we had, but did it really turn out bad? All of the

Speaker 115:26

What hasn't been unfair? But what thought we had, but at the time it seems a bad try, investment ways to make it

Presenter15:36

Madness and baggy trousers. So into the army, Andy McNabb, Royal Green Jackets, um into the routine and you got really fit and you became a boxing champion. I mean it all suited, you got educated. It was on a tour of Northern Ireland when you were nineteen that you first killed a man. Do you remember that? Yes.

Andy McNab15:54

Yes, yeah, yeah, quite vividly, yes. By then, I was a Lance Corporal in charge of a four-man foot patrol and.

Andy McNab16:02

I turned the corner into a housing estate and um

Andy McNab16:07

There was I think it was about six or seven people there, got the masks on and you know, they're waving their armor lights to the crowd over over the other side of the road. They just fired at me, I just fired back at them. There was no sort of skill about it whatsoever.

Andy McNab16:20

I ran out of ammunition on trying to change my magazine, which felt like forever. Um but obviously in the classroom when you're training you can do it very slick, but when people are firing at you it's different. It was very, very scared. People are still firing

Presenter16:32

You were scared. And did you admit to that, to being scared, to your mates? I mean, the Army requires you to be emotionless.

Andy McNab16:35

You're right.

Presenter16:39

Covering.

Andy McNab16:39

Yeah, very much so. You'cause you're dealing with with with young men and and certainly when I was a a recruiting sergeant, for instance um when we we would uh teach recruits how to fight with bayonets.

Andy McNab16:51

You you don't talk about the sandbags being bodies, you turn it into a competition who can get through the the certain number of sat sandbags correctly in a certain amount of time. You can't afford to have sort of you know young infantry soldiers fixing bayonets, charging people.

Speaker 116:57

Yeah.

Andy McNab17:07

If the blood's not up, because they're going to get killed themselves. So you've got a responsibility to make sure that these people do their job to save their lives. And it works.

Presenter17:14

And it works, and it works, and it's worked for you, and that's all part of the training. But these days, now you talk about.

Presenter17:20

A phrase you've used, I know, is emotional intelligence, as if people as if everything we've just discussed is wrong, even though it works as a training.

Andy McNab17:29

No, I d I don't think it's wrong. I I think that it it's it's something that's got to happen, but obviously

Andy McNab17:34

As you get older, you start thinking a lot more about these things. But it's not as if it changes what you do. Certainly, my time in the Special Air Service in Northern Ireland, I've done a year's tour there, and I done a two-year tour with a group called the 14 Intelligence Group, which is an undercover information gathering organisation.

Andy McNab17:54

You know, you can talk about these the enemy, the players. You can take that emotion or that emotional intelligence out of it. I know that.

Presenter18:02

You can just switch it up. That's very you can switch it on.

Andy McNab18:03

Yeah, absolutely. You can switch it on the screen. Yes, absolutely. And that's what you need to do.

Presenter18:06

So you're a human being one day and you flick the switch when you go out there and you become this machine I mentioned.

Andy McNab18:10

Yeah, there's a job to do. You know, I I certainly used to look at it as my time um working in in uh dairy for two years undercover. If I'd been brought up in a bogside, well I'd been in the IRA. But I wasn't. I was brought up in a Housing State in South London. So I'm in the Army and it's as simple as that. So they're doing their job, I'm doing my job.

Presenter18:26

Record number five.

Andy McNab18:28

It's the The Pogues and it's the the recruiting melody and um it wait just really reminds me of all the times that I've spent in August. And in fact I bought this this C D and I thought it was great and I've been playing it ever since.

Speaker 118:43

As I was walking down the road A feeling fine and lucky I were a crippling Such he came up to me says he look fine and cut the out

Speaker 118:51

For the king who is in need of manicum read this proclamation now A life and run this way then Would be a fine vacation now

Speaker 119:01

That made me so suside to him, but tellin' me Sergeant Jurio The fire-pipe stuck up on me back when I like Fire and Cheerio.

Presenter19:10

Rogues and Battle March medley. So you got into the SAS, you were badged, as you say, in 1984. You were what 24 years old, yeah. And this was your second attempt to get into the regiment it's called in the army, isn't it? Capital R.

Speaker 119:18

Yeah.

Speaker 119:22

Well, isn't it?

Presenter19:24

M

Presenter19:25

Why were you so? I mean, you were obsessed with getting into it, weren't you? Did the neglect of everything else in your life? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Andy McNab19:29

Um

Andy McNab19:30

Oh, totally. Absolutely. I think any profession that you get in, you want you want to sort of achieve the the the the highest level. It is all about proving yourself. No one pushes you because the argument is is well, if you're not pushing yourself, you don't really want to be here. So they'll

Presenter19:43

So they'll

Andy McNab19:44

For you out.

Presenter19:45

But as I say, it means that everything else in your life goes hang. I mean, how many wives and partners have you lost to this?

Andy McNab19:51

Five, five. And just got totally immersed in the job.

Presenter19:54

That

Andy McNab19:55

That was expected anyway.

Presenter19:57

It's expected and for those kinds of reasons, because it's such a an extreme form of soldiering, i i i it has a very glamorous image. Uh you know, I don't know whether it's it does.

Andy McNab20:08

It does, yeah. It does, yeah.

Presenter20:09

And you've achieved it and you're there. I mean, there are a lot of people out there who boast that they've been in the SAS because nobody can deny it.

Andy McNab20:15

Oh, there's about a million in London alone, isn't it?

Presenter20:16

In London alone is an area.

Andy McNab20:18

Uh

Presenter20:19

But I wonder what do you say to the the suggestion that you in a sense have destroyed a bit of the mystique by writing about it? I mean the fact that it's so glamorous is part of its is born of its mystery, isn't it? And you've written about it at the front line, talked about it. You know, that's that's what the problem is, isn't it? You begin to underma

Andy McNab20:32

It's now.

Andy McNab20:36

That's that.

Andy McNab20:38

Undermine it. I don't think it is. I think that, well, first of all, the glamour bit. There's a great cartoon in the training wing in Hereford. On the left-hand side, there's the guy in black with a machine gun, he's going to absolutely windows, all very glamorous. And it's how the world sees us. And then the next picture is this guy sitting down in the jungle in the rain. He's got a beard down by his knees, trying to cover the cooker because he's trying to cook some food. And the title says how it really is. And it is very true. It's about doing the basics really professionally. And then all the other stuff you can build on.

Presenter21:12

Sure, but if you even in saying that, if you like, you begin to destroy the mystique, you suggest there's a human fallibility to it. And of course the SAS needs people, needs the enemy, needs the players to believe that it's just a wonderful fighting machine. Well, it has a wonderful weaknesses.

Speaker 121:22

Yeah.

Speaker 321:23

Yeah.

Andy McNab21:23

Beep.

Andy McNab21:25

Yeah.

Speaker 121:26

Uh

Andy McNab21:26

But yes.

Andy McNab21:30

Well, it is a wonderful weaknesses. Oh, no, there's weaknesses, of course. In any organisation, there's weaknesses.

Presenter21:34

But you've exposed them as

Andy McNab21:35

No, I don't think I have. You know, there's many things that are not in there anyway. Um all the books go to the the MOD and the and the intelligence service and

Presenter21:43

All the novels. Yes, so absolutely. The first time a novel must have been referred to.

Andy McNab21:45

First time.

Andy McNab21:47

Well, it's it's we get get very sort of polite invitations about you know three months before publication, you know, we want to have a read and you know

Presenter21:54

They cut much out.

Andy McNab21:56

Well, initially they'll say, well, what we would like delete is, you know, paragraph two, page two to paragraph four, you know, page one hundred and two. But then we we sit down and work out what the problem is. And of course, just change it or delete it. There's no big problems with that.

Presenter22:10

Number six.

Andy McNab22:11

Number six. It's by Punjabi MC and it's Mirza Part 2. I just love Bollywood. Coming back from New York, a lot of the late night flights were Air India and so all of a sudden you sit there and you watch these fantastic films. I haven't got a clue what's going on. I don't know, there'd be gunfights and people getting stabbed. Then all of a sudden everyone's dancing on top of a mountain somewhere. But I just love them.

Speaker 122:31

My mudarsu allada, hosemele hojada Main

Andy McNab22:37

Nutarsu vallada, hose mele hojado Jaque ja sel panu mercine alo.

Andy McNab22:48

Jaque Jose Vanu Messinen allele.

Speaker 122:54

It was late last summer, my blood coloured disguise When I heard you rate your swab and jar in mind

Presenter22:59

Part of Nirza Part Two by Punjabi MC. Um another kind of glamour came your way in the SAS, didn't it, Andy? You met both the Princess of Wales and Mrs Thatcher. They came down to Hereford. Was this part of your VIP protection training? Yes.

Andy McNab23:12

Yes, they they they they come down and see what they're gonna get.

Presenter23:15

So what happened to them?

Andy McNab23:16

I don't mean what happened.

Presenter23:18

I don't mean what happened.

Andy McNab23:19

Uh

Presenter23:20

Yeah.

Andy McNab23:20

So we had a bit of a drama with Princess Dai. There was a stun grenades called Flash Bangs, and when they go off, they fire out these little maroons, and there'll be a flash or a bang or smoke.

Speaker 323:21

Evidently.

Presenter23:22

Yeah.

Speaker 323:22

Uh

Presenter23:22

Oh no, we've we've bring

Andy McNab23:30

Uh at the time she had quite a lot of hair and hair sprayed and one of the maroons got into her hair and and set her hair on fire. So everybody's getting worried thinking about their pensions. And then when we w whenever it was the following week, you know, there was this all the splashes in the media about, you know, Dye's new haircut. You know, it's short and it's sexy, you know. Ha where did she get the idea?

Presenter23:46

Yeah.

Presenter23:47

What about misses Thatcher? What did you think of her?

Andy McNab23:49

I thought she was very good news. We've done a demonstration for her once and it's called a four-man snatch where you'd go in, take on the hostage takers with live ammunition and grab the hostage at the same time. And she decided to become the hostage. So she sat with her handbag on the table. Four-man team came in, lots of firepower, flashbangs going off. And one of her aides, who were off to the left, behind some white mine tape, which was a safety area, actually got down onto the floor.

Speaker 324:16

What in fear?

Andy McNab24:17

In fear. And she sort of looked over and said, Get up, you're embarrassing me. And she's just there with her handbag watching what's going on.

Presenter24:22

Who knows?

Andy McNab24:23

Save as houses.

Presenter24:23

Save as houses.

Presenter24:25

She was of course adamant about not dealing with terrorists as we know. She banned them from the airwaves, refused them the oxygen and publicity as she put it. Do you suspect, do you know, that nevertheless people, the British government, were negotiating with terrorists while she was in office?

Andy McNab24:42

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why we're successful of getting a resolution, because you'll never defeat terrorism from a pure military sense. I've had personal experience of picking up sources to take for different talks with different people.

Presenter24:42

But

Presenter24:55

And indeed protect them. You protected Jerry Adams.

Andy McNab24:57

Yes, and in fact there's certain fair theories now that certainly the provisional IRA active service units that we took on were the ones that were against Jerry Adams and the political way forward. So you can even look at it and say

Presenter25:11

Hmm. How many m people have you killed in your professional life?

Andy McNab25:14

Um I've never really sort of thought about it in not in that blase way, in the fact that, oh well, you know, I'm not too sure.

Presenter25:20

Not that you've lost c

Andy McNab25:21

But it's no, it's it's you know, I certainly remember the f the very first person, it's called Peter McAvent, and I always remember that'cause it was that you know, and again, younger man, exactly the same as me.

Presenter25:21

Yeah.

Andy McNab25:30

It's something that people don't actually talk about. It's not a private thing. It's not that, you know, we call them players. They're not the enemy. You know, they're just there. Like we.

Presenter25:35

Okay. But but the fact that you can't be seen, people can't see you as I'm looking at you now, and the fact that Andy McNabb is not your real name is for fear of reprisals, as I said earlier. I mean, do you have to watch your back? Will you have to watch your back forevermore?

Andy McNab25:49

At the moment I I do. And it's not sort of cloak and dagger stuff, you know, hiding in doorways. It's just a very sensible sort of way of conducting my life. And and I'd say ninety nine percent of Special Air Service soldiers do exactly the same. It's just being sensible, that's all it is.

Presenter26:04

Book number seven.

Andy McNab26:05

Number seven is the red hot chili peppers with Californication. Now, this, if you like, the second part of my life now being involved in in film and part of the

Andy McNab26:15

The deal that you get when you get involved in film, well you get the limo, you get the hotel and I was just sitting in the limo with this guy who drives Clive and he's putting all the different C D's on and this song came up. And I'd just be happening going over Sunset Boulevard as it goes down to the coast. And the sun was setting. I thought, Yeah, I like this. This is okay. I like it. I like this job.

Speaker 126:44

Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation

Speaker 126:49

Little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen portation And if you want these kinda dreams, it's californication

Presenter27:02

The Red Hot Chili Peppers with Californication. So you've instructed Hollywood in how to make films. I mean, you've done training videos. You've talked to intelligence agencies abroad and at home. And you've written books, novels. Now, s how many novels have you done?

Andy McNab27:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter27:17

Seven novels. Uh uh which in fact are the most lucrative thing of all and they made you a a multi-millionaire.

Andy McNab27:22

Yes, I have, and it really sort of, if you like, the kickstart was Bravo 2-0. There was no big plan. It was just sort of, well, that book was successful. Do enough book.

Presenter27:27

Yeah.

Presenter27:30

Exactly. And you've said that, that in in fact, you know, you've talked to your agent and talked about how your existence is an experiment. It has to be because of what we were just talking about. The the fact that you n need to be low profile, but the nature of what you've ended up doing is very high profile.

Andy McNab27:42

And you don't just

Andy McNab27:44

Yes, very much so. It's sometimes quite confusing, you know, because it the name MacNab now as you know, it's it's a brand, you know, I've done everything from advertise watches to sell beer and at the same time it's the name as opposed to the person. And it's quite sort of strange and but you

Presenter27:56

He is

Presenter27:58

But you could pack yourself up and run tomorrow if you want to.

Andy McNab28:00

Yes, still, absolutely.

Presenter28:02

What about all your possessions? What I mean, you bought a Porsche, I mean I mean

Andy McNab28:05

Oh yeah. Yeah, I d yeah, he's done the whole thing. I did literally because I I I went to take my motor bike in for a service. Next door was the poor showroom. I went in and uh and the guy wouldn't talk to me. You know, he thought I was just having a nose and I don't know, it just annoyed me. So I said, well I want that

Presenter28:06

Boys' toys.

Andy McNab28:20

And I couldn't have that one'cause that was already bought, so I had to have that one. Yeah.

Presenter28:23

So just to sit down.

Andy McNab28:23

Spy

Presenter28:23

Uh

Andy McNab28:23

Yeah, and so I landed up with this car two weeks later and uh and that was

Presenter28:27

But could you dump all that and run if you had to?

Andy McNab28:29

Yeah, I well still now, certainly, you know, if you like my world, I'm still getting uh into a couple of suitcases, you know, a couple of pairs of jeans, a few shirts and uh even when I be sort of travel

Presenter28:34

Yeah.

Andy McNab28:38

A lot of the times I don't even take that much with me. So you just buy there, just yeah, just buy underwear and a couple of t shirts.

Presenter28:38

Okay.

Presenter28:41

Um

Presenter28:44

Material possessions at the end of the day are okay.

Andy McNab28:46

Yeah, okay.

Presenter28:47

Yeah, it's not that important. But tell me this, say if you did have to go, say if you had no money, say if you had to leave it all behind and somebody came up to you and said, um, I need somebody taken out. There's a player over there. Could you do that? Yes, yeah, yeah.

Andy McNab29:01

And basically what I would do is look at what the benefit would be to the guy who wants him killed. And if it was, you know, it could be two billion pounds, I would say, well, I'll at least I want half a billion for that, you know, as opposed to, I don't know, a couple of thousand pounds.

Presenter29:11

You know.

Presenter29:12

Yeah.

Andy McNab29:15

Yes, absolutely. It's a matter matter of price because you know it it's it's

Andy McNab29:19

You know, if it was in that position, well, you'd end up doing what you know, I'd land up doing what I used to do, getting more highly paid.

Presenter29:24

Again, more.

Presenter29:26

So you you're a mercenary.

Andy McNab29:28

No, it's it's uh mercenaries uh is is is quite a an old word and and sort of almost a cliche. Now if you're looking at certainly what professional soldiers are doing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is not mercenary work anyway because number one it's quite low paid and and number two there's there's more ways of using your brain as opposed to your hands.

Presenter29:44

Yeah, but just in the me pure meaning of the word. I mean, if the price is right, you could do the job.

Andy McNab29:49

Yes, yes, and there's there's there's many people around the world who who make a, you know, a fantastic living out of that that business.

Presenter29:56

Sure they do, but you're saying you could, so morality doesn't get to play.

Andy McNab30:01

No, I think to the point of saying that I was back down with nothing. I actually like where I am now. So if I was back down with nothing and the opportunity arose itself.

Andy McNab30:09

And doing these sort of things are quite easy. It's getting away with it, which is the most important thing. So it was just looking at it as a job. Would I be able to get away with it? Okay, I'll do it.

Andy McNab30:22

Last record. It's the swan from the Carnival of the Animals. My wife plays it all the time. She's she's played the cello ever since she was a child and it's just for pleasure, nothing sort of serious. And it's quite a slow song. But if I come in and it's being played fast, I know that it's time to make a cup of tea'cause I've done something wrong and sort of go upstairs and find out what's wrong.

Presenter30:39

She's the fifth wife, is she?

Andy McNab30:40

Yeah, she is, yeah.

Presenter30:41

Yeah, so you're being more careful with this.

Andy McNab30:42

Yes, very much so, yeah, yes. But yeah, and it's it's you know, I just sort of hear it, you know, a couple of times a week and it's great. I love it.

Presenter31:47

A Swan from the Carnival of the Animals by Saintson, played by Isabel Verrier with the Ensemble de Musique Oblique.

Presenter31:54

Now if you could only take one of those eight records with you, Andy, which one would it have to be?

Andy McNab31:59

Or I think it'd be uh Dave Bowie, I think, Sweet Thing. Um purely because it was the very first sort of record I bought and uh I found out last year he was a fan of the books because he w he he was into a bookstore to buy the book when one of their sales reps were there. Um but what he does he buys it and reads it when it comes out, but he always knows that his wife's gonna buy one for Christmas. So the bookshop have to say that he hasn't bought it, so I thought that was quite nice.

Presenter32:23

What about your book? What would you you know, we give you the Bible, we give you the complete works of Shakespeare, you can take one other book.

Andy McNab32:29

Do you know, I think it would be any Dickens book. I read Great Expectations this summer. So I'm I'm sitting there reading this book and I'm saying to my wife, do you know this book? It's so funny. She said, Yeah, I read it when I was twelve. You know, so I'm going through that phase now of reading all these things. So any yeah, any Dickens book.

Presenter32:42

That's what you're doing.

Presenter32:45

Okay. And uh a luxury, one luxury.

Andy McNab32:48

I think what we certainly in the regiment call is a gallock, which is a a machete. And the fact is with that you can build, you can defend, you can kill.

Presenter32:55

Very practical this. You're not supposed to be allowed anything practical.

Andy McNab32:56

Yeah.

Andy McNab32:58

Oh, not anything practical.

Presenter32:58

Bye.

Presenter32:59

I think if you promise not to kill with it, you can have it.

Andy McNab33:02

Well it's done then, yeah. So go build a nice shelter with it, it'd be nice.

Presenter33:05

You're used to interrogation, aren't you? I can tell. Yeah, you answer up very readily.

Andy McNab33:07

Yeah.

Presenter33:11

Andy McNad, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your presentation disks.

Andy McNab33:13

Yeah.

Speaker 333:13

The president is

Speaker 333:22

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.