SAS: Rogue Heroes

I’ve made a bit of a bloomer. Fortunately only two know (Bertie was asleep), Robert and Annnabel.

Many would restrict circulation of such a gross error but I’m okay about owning up in case others make the same mistake. We are watching Rogue Heroes in London and Wiltshire and, having read a lot about Special Forces, thought I knew it all. In fact I’ve forgotten almost everything but was prepared to share my misconceptions. It must have been very annoying as I peered at cap badges and epaulettes, muttering “bogus” or “he must have been in the Micks”. The wider landscape got short shrift too. “You’d never see a sand sea there … that fort is left over from filming Beau Geste”, etc. I was hoping to write about the multiple inaccuracies in SAS: Rogue Heroes but find in essence it is true; not least in its portrayal of the main characters.

Jack O’Connell (typecast) playing Paddy Mayne in the TV series both captures Mayne’s character and looks like him. Mayne was, as we say, a wild man. He was a wartime soldier, a quality never appreciated in peacetime. I’ve been lucky to know a few and inevitably they have been shown the War Office door, lucky they are told not to be court marshalled. They belong in a small segment of a Venn diagram embracing looniness, loyalty, courage and patriotism. I wonder if modern warfare has room for such characters? Or do drones do the dirty work?