A TWENTY-YEAR military career which saw a man travel across the globe has been turned into a book.

Stuart Crawford’s personal memoir traces his career in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment (Scotland’s Own) from his time as a young troop leader in West Germany through to leaving the armed forces in 1999.

Published later this month, Tank Commander: From the Cold War to the Gulf and Beyond follows Stuart’s journey.

The 68-year-old, who lives off Haddington’s Mill Wynd, told the Courier he had “always done a bit of writing here and there”.

However, he was convinced to turn a series of blog entries into a full book.

He said: “I was writing for someone’s blog online and just funny stories, everything from getting my bus pass to various things. I was writing about a very short stint on East Coast FM, where my son was doing that as well. I wrote about it and community radio being great.

“I was taking the mickey out of myself slightly and said on the blog that doing the presenting and production work with a desk full of levers and buttons you have to press is even more difficult than commanding a squadron of tanks.

“The owner of the blog said, ‘Have you commanded a squadron of tanks?’

“I started writing a series of articles on being a soldier, what it was like and I got into putting it out every fortnight.

“Ex-soldiers began to read it and one said, ‘Are you going to produce a book out of this?’”

The book, which is published later this month by Pen and Sword and will also be released in the USA early next year, tells of the father-of-three’s time in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment (Scotland’s Own), including spending Christmas in the Middle East during the first Gulf War.

Stuart paid tribute to those he served alongside and said: “Part and parcel of the fun in writing it was remembering what it was like.

“The good bits and the bad bits, although the good bits far outweigh the bad bits.

“The thing that reminded me more than anything else was when serving as a regimental officer with the Scottish soldiers was how much of the time I spent laughing.

“It was incredibly funny, even when out in some damp forest in Germany where everybody was cold and exhausted and it was raining, it was dark – the boys were so funny.”

Stuart has lived throughout East Lothian, from Dirleton to Haddington, since leaving the Army in 1999.

He stood for the Scottish Lib Dems in the council elections for the Haddington and Lammermuir ward earlier this year. Now, he is looking forward to getting his hands on a hard copy of the book later this month.

He said: “It is just one of those where there is a great sense of ‘here it is, I’ve done it’.”