...a story of remarkable contrasts:

From Scapa Flow in 1944 as a seventeen-year-old midshipman, to Tokyo Harbour and the Japanese surrender,

from the Royal Cruise to South Africa in HMS Vanguard to climbing the Alps, then sailing the sweltering waters of the Persian Gulf,

from studying Russian at Cambridge and in Paris, to the British Embassy in Moscow, the wrong end of a Kalashnikov and Stalin's funeral in Moscow,

from the first post-war transit of the Trans-Siberian Railway by Westerners, to navigating a destroyer through a fog-bound minefield in Germany, then working a family farm in Aberdeenshire,

from the lambing field at dawn, to late-night sittings in the House of Commons (1966-70) and the Royal Highland (1970-92),

from presenting Grampian TV's Country Focus programme for twelve years, to writing four books,

from initiating a campaign for a healthier Scotland, speaking in secondary schools from Shetland to the Gorbals and a first parachute jump at sixty-six, to a conservation project on river otters in Chile at the age of seventy-four...

James Davidson OBE MVO FRAgS tells his story with candour, humour and insight.