Behind The Camera - Paul Weston interview

Um, but yeah, the book.

So how did you come about the idea, Paul, of this book?

Well, I've been ...

They've been nagging me for years to, to, to write it and, uh, I've always said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a bit young yet." [laughs] But, um, yeah, I've been toying with it for years but, um, and my, uh, family have been, you know, on my back to do something.

So I did start ...

When I started writing, I started doing, um, I thought, well, a bit of excitement, The Bridge Too Far, and, uh, in that I, I thought I was gonna come to my time, uh, uh, ending.

So, and, uh, and I thought if, you know, they say that life flashes be- before you if you're about to die.

I thought, if that did happen, what would my life, what would I see? So I started really at, you know, at my birth and, and, and wrote about what it was like during the '40s, during, growing up during the war, purely for my grandchildren to get some idea of what, um, what it was like.

You know? The truth of, of, um, you know, growing up in, in those circumstances.

And I didn't think it would make the book at all.

I thought it would, you know, it's just an idea that, uh, I would, uh, then skip into, straight into, um, stunting really.

But as I progressed I, I, I came to understand that, you know, it, it is my life story.

If anyone's gonna understand what happened later in my career, um, they should understand how I got there.

In doing that, the stories evolved and hopefully they're interesting enough for non, uh, fans of, of Bond or, um, uh, Star Wars to, uh, enjoy to read really.

That's all I wanted to do is tell a story of my life, uh, in a comfortable way that wasn't saying, you know, there I was on fire and I fell off this building and, and, you know.

I didn't want to make it that sort of book.

I wanted to make it, uh, a story of my life as I, I was gonna write it.

It was, it's a bit, um, uncomfortable in a way purely because you're, you're laying out your everything, warts and all, your, your, your life.

And, uh, yeah, it's, um, it is a bit nerve-wracking to, uh, hopefully see some reaction that, um, people like it.

That's all I want really.

I, I think what's always exciting about the, particularly the, the, the way in which these books tend to come about is that they are, as you've just said yourself, they're story tell based.

You know, they are story based.

And you've always been a great raconteur.

You know, you can hold an audience with a story.

And this very clearly works when you go from page to page, from chapter to chapter because it's engrossing.