Paddy Ashdown has been a Royal Marine, the leader of the Liberal Democrats for eleven years, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is a life peer in the House of Lords. On top of that he has written 8 books, with the 8th coming out on the 5th of June. I can’t wait as I have loved all of his other books. I interviewed him about his books and politics. Here is part one.
Did you get the idea for A Brilliant Little Operation: The Cockleshell Heroes and the Most Courageous Raid of World War 2 while you were a member of the Royal Marines elite Special Boot Squadron?
No, my publisher approached me and said ‘it’s the 70th anniversary how about writing the book’. Which is my seventh book. I am just about to produce my 8th so it was a natural subject really.
What is your 8th book about?
The 8th book is about the largest resistance battle with the Germans in the Second World War. It is called A Terrible Victory, about the Vercors plateau on June 1944 and it was the biggest resistance German battle in Western Europe. [Learn more about the book here. It is about the chronicle of the French Resistance during World War Two]
That sounds fascinating. You have written quite a lot of books. Do you have a favourite?
I think the one I am working on now is always my favourite. I love writing books and whatever you’re working on consumes your mind so it is always the one you are most thinking about.
You’re books are very good. They are always very factual and have lots of history in them. How do you go about writing them. What is your writing schedule?
Writing The Brilliant Little Operation, and the one I am going to produce, Harper Collins will publish it on the 5th of June, takes me about three years of research. I mean, I start writing before then and overall I don’t like writing unless I have all of the research it is possible to get. Normally the whole process will take my three and a half to four years. Of which three years is spent on research. Going to the wonderful archive museum in Britain, the National Archives in Britain. In the case of both of my most recent books, to the Château de Vincennes in Paris, In France there are three key archives you have to go to. And also the Bauhaus-Archiv in Germany.
I spend a lot of time in archives. In writing my present book I have read sixty other books on the subject, all of them in French. In writing a Brilliant Little Operation I have read four books before and a lot of research. So research is very important.
You can really tell that when you read your books.
Thank you, that’s kind. That’s very generous.
Tomorrow: The Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, Nick Clegg, Labour and the NHS: Exclusive interview.
