AN INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed author joined students in Reading to give a talk on writing, working, and the importance of reading.
Andy McNab, a best-selling writer and former member of the SAS, attended a talk attended by GCSE students at Reading College and University Centre on Tuesday, January 31.
While there, he spoke about his personal background, including his time in the military, the education he received as a member of the armed forces, his writing career and associated work in film, and the impact that learning to read late in his life had on him.
During his service, McNab was posted in Gibraltar, Northern Ireland, and Iraq, following which he was among a number of men captured by Iraqi forces and held prisoner for six weeks.
By the time he left the service, he’d been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal for his work.
He went on to begin writing, with his first work, Bravo Two Zero, becoming internationally acclaimed and his most celebrated work, even spawning a BBC film adaptation.
He also developed a specialist training course for reporters and NGO staff working in hostile environments, as well as advising for a number of Hollywood films.
In 2017, he was awarded a CBE for services to literacy and charity, following his work with The Reading Agency.
His advocacy for literacy has been a particular focus as a result of his own experiences with learning to read: McNab was reported to have a reading age of 11 when he joined the army.
He finished reading a book for the first time when he was 16, becoming a voracious reader as a result.
Speaking after the event, he said: “It was good fun to speak to the students. They had great questions.
“There were students who were here who are thinking about a military career as a means of social mobility.
“It’s a really interesting age because many of them will be thinking about the future and becoming an adult, so if there’s one thing that I’ve said that they go away and think about and give it a go, that’s good enough for me.
“If 20% go away and have a think about what I’ve said, it’s a success. Some will be on it, while others will need a bit peer pressure to help them to act on it.
“There were also a couple of Public Services students from Bracknell and Wokingham College in the audience too, who are thinking about joining the army, and widening their horizons – they’re perfectly capable of doing it.”
Bee Hurley, studying a full-time GCSE Humanities Pathway (Citizenship, English Language, English Literature, Geography and Maths) at Reading College and University Centre, was one of the students in the audience.
She said: “I thought his talk was super engaging– he’s a very interesting person, who speaks in a really accessible way for everyone.
“He was very engaging, and his experiences were really amazing to hear about.
“I asked him about his other books and whether his fiction books were also based on the experiences that he’d had
“I think it’s amazing how he’s gone on to write 35 books after at age 16, with so little education, he’s really pursued it–it’s very inspiring.”
“It’s shown me how you can draw on your own experiences, even when writing fiction and also speaking about the three-act drama structure used in story writing, which was interesting
for writing fiction.”
Edward Christie, an English Teacher at Activate Learning, said: “Allowing our students to hear this amazing, inspiring, true-life story of someone who’s been through so much from Borstal, through the army to CBE and learnt so much about the power of education is really important.
“At the moment, we’re teaching the students about persuasive writing and the power of speeches so I hope hearing an eloquent speaker, speak about a true-life story will be eye opening around the power of words and the power of true stories.”
