A thrilling true story that you won't want to put down
Disadvantages:
Scared me half to death in places . Made me cry in others
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I suggested this book to Ciao just as I'd finished re-reading it, yes that's right re-reading, you see I've had the book for a couple of years now and I remember the first time round I simply couldn't put it down and I finished all 303 pages within a couple of days. Now it's very rare for me to read a book more than once, films I can watch over and over but books, they have to be something special to get a second look.
Of course I didn't have a toddler back then like I do now who demands lots of my time and attention. So this time round I've had to take my time over it which usually meant a few pages each night before bed.
I'm quite glad of this really as although I enjoyed it immensely the first time round I was so disappointed that I finished it so quickly. This way I could savour the story and get to know the lives of the people it held within its pages.
So what attracted me to this book in the first place, well as you will have guessed by the title of the book this is a true life account of military life, the SAS no less but before you decide on the strength of that to read no further please may I ask you to bear with me as I tell you more.
This is no ordinary story, it isn't one of those books that tell us how our troops fought bloody wars from a macho mans perspective (no offence to our troops btw I think they do a wonderful job) but this is so much more. This book tells of another kind of bravery, the bravery of a wife left behind to wait whilst her husband goes off to do who knows what sometimes for months at a time.
So who in fact is Jenny Simpson? Well first off we have Jenny Simpson the author, she has written this book well with lots of detailed accounts not only of her own life but the second hand accounts of what her husband had to endure.
Secondly we have Jenny Simpson the wife of Ian Simpson, the man who she loves tremendously; oh you can tell that from every word that pours out of this book. You can feel her longing for him when he's away and her excitement when he's home again.
Lastly we have Jenny Simpson the woman. At different parts of this story I formed different views on her. Sometimes she came across as arrogant and bossy, others she appeared to be like a wounded and scared animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, sort of vulnerable and childlike. But mostly she was charming, warm and witty with a caring heart.
She'd met her husband on a night out with friends in Hereford which apparently is classed as a pick up place for anyone wanting to snare a man from the regiment. After reading this I don't think I shall be rushing to get myself one thank you very much but apparently the pubs and clubs were full of SAS guys looking to pull and always plenty of young women only too eager and willing.
Of course that was never her intention; she was originally a Geordie lass and had no interest in the local cattle markets. That all changed one night when she spotted a tall rather scruffy looking man with a gypsy appearance in the bar. The attraction was instant and her life although she didn't know it at the time was changed forever.
We find all this out a little later in the book though. The first chapter draws you into the story with the line 'They say an Albatross may have caused the accident' this of course tells us how during the Falklands Conflict of the early 1980's, (gosh was it really that long ago?) a Sea King helicopter ditched into the South Atlantic killing 20 of the 30 men on board. It had only been a routine five minute flight across a mile of rough sea to transfer men from one ship to another. A tragic accident, a tragic waste!
Thankfully for Jenny, Ian wasn't on the helicopter at the time of the crash but he lost many of his friends and in particular his best friend Paul Bunker.
There are many tales of death and fear in this book as Ian is sent to fight in jungles, in the dessert and much closer to home in Northern Ireland. We hear how he along with the rest of his regiment lived in appalling conditions for weeks on end with little food and water and although there are immense tales of bravery in this book it is the mixture of the often graphically horrifying stories and the sometimes humorous home life of Jenny that make this book such an interesting read.
My favourite part of the book is when the top brass decide that it would be a good idea to teach the SAS wives how to handle a gun, not only on a shooting range but also in the 'Killing House' the place where the SAS trained and practiced with live ammunition and as she explains the place where several men were accidentally killed during exercise hence the nickname!
All of the women are put through their paces and taught not only how to shoot a gun but how to take it apart, clean it and put it back together again. This Jenny practiced with Ian's gun every night until she was the fastest and the best in the class. She developed a hunger for more and soon grew to understand the fire in Ian's eyes when he talked about firing a gun.
However after a while the big wigs got wind of the course and put a stop to it. Apparently there is a high divorce rate in the regiment and they were afraid that having taught the women how to use the guns one of them might one day use it on their husband!
Jenny's home life was very much a rollercoaster ride of emotions. She describes the loneliness she felt when Ian was away for months on end while she waited for a letter just so that she knew he was still alive. The happiness as they spent whatever short time they had together just doing things like any other couple and the frustration at Ian's desire to move house quite regular just as she'd finished decorating the one that they were living in. All at the same time as she has to keep her husbands job a secret from all but close friends and family.
There's a dark side to the relationship too, at one point in the book the strain of the secrecy and the horrors of what he has seen turn Ian into a violent, abusive husband and although in normal circumstances I would be the first to scream at her to leave him I found myself openly crying for both of them.
Gosh there's so much more I want to tell you about this wonderful book, you may think that's a strange word to use about a book like this but that's what it is. It's a story of courage and fear and hate and all of those other emotions that living like that would make us all go through, but most of all it's a book about love. A love that saw a woman nurse her husband through malaria whilst all of the time she thought he was dying. A love that made a woman wait at home faithfully whilst her husband was off somewhere most probably putting a bullet into someone's head. A love that took whatever life threw at it and still managed to stay strong.
There's something else about this book too. We know that Jenny wrote this so we know she's okay but what about Ian? Has she written this as a tribute to a now dead husband or did he manage to dodge the bullets and the bombs long enough to see this in publication? This we have to wait to find out and I'm not going to spoil it for you so there!!
I will tell you though that at one point in the book there is a real fear that the IRA may have got hold of Jenny and Ian's address. This part terrified me as I felt the fear as she wrote how every noise in the night made her think that someone had come to kill her. The way she wrote it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and although I felt very silly the next morning I was jumping at every single noise I heard that night!
The book also contains several black and white photos, showing Ian and Jenny. Of course their faces are blacked out for obvious reasons, there's a picture of Paul Bunker too, the friend that Ian lost in the Falklands along with pictures of ships, helicopters, guns and one or two snapshots.
So if you're looking for an accurate historical document of the wars of the twentieth century then maybe you should look elsewhere but if you want to hear a true story of the struggles of an ordinary man and wife living an extraordinary life then take a look at this book.
I'm sure like me you won't be able to put it down and who knows you might just learn a thing or two from it too if only that we should never complain about our own dull lives again!
