Reading and writing have always fascinated me since childhood. My particular interest has always been autobiographies.
I particularly enjoyed the ones where the author was honest and “big” enough to write in depth about the downsides of his/her life rather than just writing ad nauseum about wonderful achievements. That in my opinion is a proper memoir.

The author of an autobiography must be ready to put his
heart on his sleeve. If not, it is not a genuine collection of facts.

My father the late Commendatore Alfred Bencini a former Police Commissioner in Malta published his wonderful and eventful autobiography “Nothing but the Truth” in 1986. It ignited my interest to start thinking seriously of writing mine. I reckoned I also had an interesting story to tell, though of a completely different nature.

I started making notes in my diaries from my early teens and have done so ever since. They helped jog my memory when I eventually decided to begin writing my Memoirs in my last British Army posting in Belgium in late 1996. I completed them in Malta in 2000. The book was published by me in 2001.

Although the chapter about Hess takes up a somewhat small part of my autobiography, he was my most well-known patient. Was the prisoner in Spandau really Rudolf Hess?