My book is about five years of my life, serving in the Royal Navy between 1965 and 1970 and travelling the world.

It is full of travel experiences, often outlandish and funny stories, humour and wry observations of life in the Navy and in general.

It is designed for a universal rather than a military audience and is intended to entertain.

It describes my experiences during tough training, serving on an aircraft carrier and, finally, small coastal minesweepers, which still managed to traverse the oceans.

It tells of using charts originally created by Captain Cook and updated by a reverend and a 13-year-old Midshipman in 1856, visiting "former" headhunters in Borneo and sweeping live mines the Strait of Malacca 20 years after the Second World War.

The ship was also blessed with the birth of a baby boy, born at sea 200 miles from Fiji and named after our youngest 17-year-old crew member.

I enjoyed travelling to some really remote areas that are still off the tourist track, even today. It was a unique and humbling experience I will never forget.

I do hope you enjoy reading my book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

I do hope you enjoy reading my book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.