I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind.

My family wasn't terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then.

When I vacate this sack of old bones I won't care what you do with it. Bury or burn it but don't make much fuss.

My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.

I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm delighted to be looked on as his heir and be categorised as an adventure novelist because that's exactly what I am.

All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.

I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers, beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.