Tony Horne tells how Craig Summers' story of the most dangerous job in television - keeping celebrities alive - came to life in Bodyguard: My Life On The Front Line.
It was two weeks after the release of Tango 190, which I ghosted for PC David Rathband, when Iain Dale rang.
At that point Iain didn’t normally ring me!
I had pulled up outside my Co-op and had three screaming kids in the back. They might have even been my own kids.
‘I’ve got this guy in the office who has had an interesting life…got bombed in Iraq with John Simpson in 2003…do you fancy it?’
I couldn’t believe it.
I had just come off doing eighteen years of breakfast radio when suddenly the call came in to get back on board.
I remember saying to Iain that I’d try anything unless it was about Ireland or the Middle East!
When I first met Craig in Starbucks at Hammersmith Station, late August, all I knew was the bombing bit. Bar some mutual acquaintances unbeknown to us, we had nothing in common.
I remember saying to him that I would call him as soon as I finished my book on the Inca Trek, which I have completed but haven’t published!
And then the journey began.
Night after night, seven nights a week, I would press record and play on the Dictaphone, pour the wine, and chat for four hours.
All I had in front of me were ten chapter headings.
It just worked, and it just flowed. We wrote 122,000 words in 86 days, and delivered two months ahead of schedule. I only make the point to demonstrate both what great friends we became and how brilliant Craig’s story is.
I could read him, and punctuate him but if you’ve seen what he has, the story can tell itself.
You have to buy this book. I was so proud of the Rathband book, but that was essentially one night of horror and an aftermath of hell. Craig’s story covers ten years at the BBC escorting some of the corporation’s most famous faces around the world and filming undercover with them.
Read the passage when John Simpson and he were twelve metres from the bomb; sit there aghast at what Craig found after the Tsunami of 2004/5; read in wonder at the coke the Bulgarian mafia placed in front of him to seal the deal; then marvel at the jollies – getting pissed with Hells Angels; bodyguarding Gary Lineker and taking Ranulph Fiennes and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston to the Tora Bora caves on one of his thirty or so trips to Afghanistan.
And like all subjects I work with…Craig nearly missed some of the detail or passed it off as incidental. I’ll say no more other than the curveball that is the chapter called ‘Dad’.
That only appeared after a one-off comment when we were meant to be discussing Sir Matthew Pinsent and works technically very well to steer the book to its conclusion.
There are some people who tried to stop this book being published. That normally means that everyone should read it.
It was an absolute pleasure to write it, and Craig threw himself at the work like a professional, even though by his own admission, he had no idea how to write a book.
Bodyguard: My Life on the Front Line will hit you on many levels. From the boy wonder story of a man living the dream to the staggering revelations of what really goes on behind the camera, coupled with the new politics of the Health and Safety era and the post 9/11 War on Terror.
I hope there is no book like this out there. I walked a fine line between writing the thing and being totally sucked in by the adventure.
I really hope it gets you the same way.
It’s out now, folks…thanks for reading.