User:Mrnarrative

MIKE LUNNON-WOOD
Peter Michael Lunnon-Wood, more commonly referred to as Mike, (born 26 June 1955 died 1 March 2008) was a novelist and businessman from Salisbury, Rhodesia now Harare Zimbabwe. His writings include a collection of military fiction novels, mostly focussing on the British armed forces and particularly the Royal Marines. His books were widely credited in Australia and the USA for his intense description of battle sequences and his thorough research conducted with the Royal Navy, prompting Lunnon-Wood's final novel 'Long Reach' to be dubbed in Australia " As good as Clancy or your money back". These works of fiction draw on the intense camaraderie and fellowship experienced by soldiers, with Lunnon-Wood's writing style focussing on a particularly description heavy narrative inspired by his time in the Rhodesian bush war in Victoria falls in the Zambezi valley while managing the Azambezi river lodge at the age of twenty two.

LIFE AND CAREER
Lunnon-Wood was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia to a Rhodesian mother Jane and British father Peter Lunnon-Wood, a veteran of the Battle of Britain and an RAF officer, spitfire pilot. He had two brothers, one older brother Tony who is a retired RAF Buccaneer pilot and Flight lieutenant for British Aerobatic display team and Mark, his twin, who is currently based in Abu-Dhabi working as a consultant. Lunnon-Wood and his brothers grew up in a middle class home on Kenilworth Road in Salisbury until the age of eleven at which point Peter's work took the family to Borneo where the boys would commute to school in Australia. Studying at Geelong Grammar in Victoria, Lunnon-Wood was a bright, hard working student and was a keen rugby player and swimmer and thrived in this community, until they were uprooted again and moved to Nelson, New Zealand in 1970. Now studying at Nelson College, Lunnon-Wood missed the ANZAC Vietnam war draught by one year. It was later remarked that he was disappointed by this, but years later was thankful.

When he passed his final exams at Nelson College, Lunnon-Wood went onto study Journalism in Nelson, passing with a diploma in Investigative Journalism, a career which ended abruptly as Lunnon-Wood decided that although it played to his strengths as a writer, the callous manipulation of people in the press was not something he could be party to for the long term. Lunnon-Wood worked for an advertising company in Wellington for 6 months, while there, directing an advertising campaign for ball-bearings.

Shortly before the Unilateral declaration of Independence which turned Rhodesia and it's colonial past into a new Zimbabwe in 1980, Lunnon-Wood returned home to Rhodesia to live and work. working as Catering Manager for Meakles Hotel in Harare, before moving to Victoria falls. At this time, the Bush war was particularly prevalent and Lunnon-Wood worked in the British South African Police. Upon the UDI, Lunnon-Wood decided to leave Rhodesia as it was and never claim a Zimbabwean passport, rather use his British one. Lunnon-Wood spent several years working as a driller on the North Sea Oil and Gas rigs before moving to Saudi Arabia and working in the marketing department for DHL Asia. It was here he met his wife Annie, an Air hostess for Gulf Air and in 1988 had a son, Piers.

Lunnon-Wood moved his family to the UK during the first Gulf War after his son very nearly accidentally injected himself with an anti nerve gas epi-pen vaccination. He was later quoted saying " the day my son needs to have a gas mask in his bedroom, is the day I am not doing my job as a father either correctly or conscientiously". Lunnon-Wood lived in the UK for the rest of his life in West Sussex, and went from consulting in management for Ernst & Young to starting a successful Executive Coaching Company named 'Raising the Bar' which is still in operation under his Business partner Nick Ellse.