From the Base to the Gentleman: A Boyhood Forged in Dust and Discipline.
A Lightning fighter jet at King Khalid Air Base, Saudi Arabia – where a boyhood was forged in dust, discipline, and the shadows of giants. If I could return to any point in my life, it wouldn’t be the easy days—it would be the formative ones. The hot days. The strange days. The days when everything smelled of jet fuel, dust, and possibility. It would be Saudi Arabia, 1974 to 1979. A long way from Suffolk—but nowhere has ever felt more like home. My father had taken a job at King Khalid Air Base, near Khamis Mushait, close to the Yemeni border. We flew out in ’74, and I spent my childhood living on that base. It was more than a place. It was a world. A world of order and ceremony. Of men who carried war stories in their posture. Of discipline and strength—and sometimes, silence too deep for a boy to understand. A Front-Row Seat to Power From a young age, I watched strength walk in uniform. These weren’t men who posted about toughness or shouted about dominance. They ...