Frederick Forsyth CBE, born in 1938 in the small Kentish market town of Ashford. Attended school locally and in Tonbridge. Left in a cloud of mutual relief at seventeen. After a spell in the RAF he entered journalism including four years as a foreign correspondent for Reuters and two and a half with the BBC. There was a basic disagreement over how to cover the Biafra war, so he was asked to leave. He worked freelance covering the conflict until Biafra collapsed. Returned to London and wrote a book in a fit of money-lust. Called it The Day of the Jackal. Took it to several discerning publishers who asked him to leave. Finally accepted by Hutchinson and has been scribbling ever since.