Major gives talk (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Major gives talk

MAJOR Philip Ashby will be giving a talk about his escape from Sierra Leone and reading from his top ten best selling book Unscathed at Ottakar's bookshop, Cirencester on Wednesday, July 3 at 7pm.

Major Ashby, who lives locally, joined the Royal Marines aged 17, as a second lieutenant, the youngest commissioned officer in HM forces.

Having earned his green beret, he was sponsored by the Marines to attend Pembroke College, Cambridge where he met his future wife, Anne.

After university he served in Alaska, Brunei, Central America, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland and Norway and followed this with a year of specialist training as a Royal Marines Mountain Leader.

In 1999 he was promoted to Major, the youngest person to hold that rank in the whole of the armed forces, and was posted to Sierra Leone where he was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his dramatic escape from rebel forces there.

He is currently studying for a master's degree in defence technology.

Unscathed is published by Macmillan at £16.99.