Angus Donald’s path to becoming a bestselling historical novelist was anything but straightforward, taking him through Hong Kong in the 1970s to Afghan war zones
WE LIVED ON THE PEAK, in a large white house on Mount Kellett Road. I remember camping on High West (Sai Ko Shan) with my brother John one summer. I was about 10 and he was 14. We marched off with all our gear, slept on the bare mountainside, made a fire and cooked bacon. I discovered afterward that my mother had been freaking out the whole time. The radio had reported that an escaped criminal was at large in the vicinity. But Hong Kong in the 1970s was generally a happy time. I recall junk trips, picnics and visits to a bustling market where I bought a tiny transistor radio, my prized possession.
AFTER LEAVING MARLBOROUGH, I went on holiday to Greece and didn’t come back. When I ran low on money, I found work as a fruit picker in Crete. Actually, most of the time I hung out on the beach, chatting up tourist girls and drinking. I abruptly cancelled my plans to read chemistry at Southampton University and, inspired by John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row (1945) and Tortilla Flat (1935), embarked joyfully on a delightful but penniless career as a beach bum. Being perpetually broke palled after a year, however. I remember one miserable period of three days in the autumn when me and my friends just lay in our room, starving, drinking black tea and occasionally venturing out to steal oranges off trees for sustenance.
