1.
One weekend in 1992 I was working in a TA field kitchen on Salisbury Plain peeling potatos, making toast and boiling eggs, fully aware that if it wasn't for the chefs like me, frontline Apache attack helicopters wouldn't be able to function.

2. A Special Forces guy came up to me and said 'that is the best boiled egg I've had since Operation Desert Storm, what's your name?' I told him and he said 'Francois, we need a man like you for a highly sensitive operation we're going on'

3. Next thing I know me and fifteen SAS guys are flying over Wales in a Chinook. @Edwina_Currie had been taking hostage by Welsh Nationalists furious at English second home owners in Pembrokeshire and John Major, for obvious reasons, was not backing down.

4. They were holding her in a caravan park just south of Cardigan. We spotted the Nationalists from distance because they were all wearing novelty daffodils hats. A sniper's dream. The guys descended on ropes whilst I laid down a suppressing fire of hard boiled eggs.

5. The fighting was furious but my shelling was incessant and after a couple of direct hits on Welsh noggins they surrendered. They'd dressed Edwina in a red cloak and stove pipe hat to hide her but her singular aura was unmistakable and we bundled her into the chopper.

6. We flew her back to England blasting Land of Hope and Glory out of the Chinook at the Welsh mountains and were made to sign the official secrets act when we landed and that evening I was back in the mess making angel delight.
You know. I sometimes wonder if it ever happened.