Andy McNab
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2005
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the former SAS soldier turned author Andy McNab.
After being abandoned as a baby, he was adopted and was brought up in the Peckham area of South London. A life of minor crime followed until he joined the infantry with the Royal Green Jackets in 1976 progressing to the SAS. In the Gulf War, McNab commanded the Bravo Two Zero patrol, given the task of destroying underground communication links in Iraq and mobile Scud launchers. Three of the eight-man patrol were killed, one escaped and four were taken prisoner by the Iraqis and tortured over a six-week period. He's been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal and was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in 1993. His book Bravo Two Zero became a bestseller and this was followed by his autobiography Immediate Action. Since then, he's published seven novels about a former soldier who then works for British Intelligence.
Elements of this programme may offend or upset some listeners.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | Elements of this program may offend or upset some listeners. |
| 0:12.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2005 and the presenter |
| 0:16.8 | was Sue Lawley. My cost away this week is a soldier and an author. |
| 0:35.0 | Abandoned as a baby on the steps of Guy's Hospital in London, |
| 0:38.0 | he was adopted by a family in South London. |
| 0:41.0 | As a young boy, he drifted into a life of minor crime ending up in |
| 0:44.4 | Borstel from which he was released on condition he joined the army. It was a |
| 0:48.8 | life-changing moment. He became the complete soldier, eventually joining the SAS. |
| 0:53.7 | In 1991, he led a covert operations team behind enemy lines in Iraq |
| 0:58.1 | with a mission to destroy Saddam's main underground command links. |
| 1:01.7 | He was captured and he was tortured but |
| 1:04.1 | eventually released. His book about the expedition Bravo 20 is a worldwide bestseller |
| 1:09.2 | and has been followed by half a dozen novels featuring a retired Special Forces agent that have made |
| 1:14.9 | their author a multi-millionaire. |
| 1:17.3 | He is also the perfect radio interviewee. |
| 1:19.8 | He doesn't allow the public to see his face for fear of reprisals. |
| 1:24.1 | If I hadn't joined the army, he says, I'd be in prison now. |
| 1:28.0 | He is Andy McNabb. |
| 1:29.7 | It's as simple as that, is it your natural talents could have taken you either way? |
| 1:33.5 | I think so. Certainly living in South London, the horizons were always quite limited, |
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