A FORMER SAS major who had a leading role in exposing one of the biggest political scandals of the 21st century, tells the story in his action-packed memoir, Still Alive (Surprisingly).

Today, having been an SAS officer in Hereford in the 1970s, John Wick, now 74, lives on the south coast and in Spain where he has a home in Andalucia.

John's memoir includes some of the most dramatic of his exploits, among which was his role as the go-between in 2009’s MPs’ expenses scandal. Approached by the source, John, then the head of a corporate intelligence company, International Security Solutions Limited, negotiated the deal with the Telegraph which was the catalyst for the explosion of a scandal.

"The speaker (of the House of Commons) wanted me identified and locked up – I was finally outed by Murdoch in the e-edition of the Wall Street Journal."

Even knowing that what he was doing could result in fine or prison time, he says: "I decided it had to be done. I would be the fall guy. It was a very important thing in my life when I did it.

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"For a man who, up to that point, had been in the shadows looking into the light, I then found myself in the light with no shade."

It was his daughter who prompted him to finally commit his memories to paper. “I got locked down in Spain and my daughter came to stay with me for a bit. We would sit round the kitchen table and she could quiz me about my career, saying "I've never heard that story, let’s put it in a book. She’d then write everything on post it notes, which I later transcribed."

John lost his father when he was just 14, later learning that his father had been Special Operations Executive in the war – "he had a much more hairy career than I did, but I did end up following a fairly similarly sort of path."

His own route into the services was, he explains, the result of being a slow starter academically: “I did eventually pull my socks up and got a place at university, but instead he went to Sandhurst and was commissioned in 1969, initially commisioned into the Royal Army Ordnance Corp: "It didn’t enthral me too much. Though I am the only former Parachute Regiment and SAS former officer who ever commanded a mobile bath unit in the field!"

Still Alive (Surprisingly) was published by Cranthorpe Millner on June 27.