PETER plays his joker

Pete Scholey grew up in the town's tough Milner flats and went on fight terrorists in the jungles of Borneo and the Aden desert.

Now he has written a book called The Joker about his exploits, which spanned 23 traumatic and sometimes amusing years.

Scholey, now 63, was born on July 25, 1936, one of eight children in a family who had a monopoly on the watercress distribution business in Brighton.

He recalled: "I am a Brighton boy through and through and was always proud of my roots. But it was a strange business, this watercress. It was grown near Chichester and then loaded onto a little train that chugged over to Brighton.

"We used to have an old boy called 'Old Kingy' who would go up to Brighton Station with a barrow, collect the watercress packed in baskets off the train and then bring it down to Milner flats.

"Tables were set out and my mother along with other members of the family would cut it up, put it in smaller baskets and then we would deliver it to every greengrocer in central Brighton. Everybody knew that the people who dealt in watercress in the town were the Scholeys.

"We had a complete monopoly up until the Second World War when the business ceased. Nobody muscled in on our patch.

"We didn't go as far as machine-gunning the competition, or putting horses' heads in their beds, but we were a kind of Mafia. Watercress was our thing, and you didn't mess with the Scholeys. We always had numbers on our sides."

Remembering his childhood, Scholey said: "Even though it was a tight squeeze for a family of eight, the great thing about being in Milner flats was that most of the rest of the family lived there as well, so my aunts and cousins were able to help out when they could.

"However, having such a lot to cope with got my mum down, and she had a miserable time. I can see her shaking with fright at the sound of the air raid warning siren, before we all bundled downstairs to the Anderson shelter next to my granny's flat on the ground floor.

"Mum's fears weren't helped by all the horrible rumours that were going around, including one that the Germans thought our block of flats was a barracks, and that Hitler had ordered a special raid to destroy them."

They came close, bombing a clinic next to the flats, killing or wounding the people inside.

Scholey said: "I have a vivid memory of a loud bang, and looking up to see the entire window, frame, glass and all, coming straight towards me. I had the sensation of being lifted bodily from the bed, thrown against the wall and falling to the floor. Sometime later an ARP warden found me, trapped beneath a wardrobe covered with wreckage and debris."

It was his first brush with death, but not his last.

Scholey joined the Army as an 18-year-old National Serviceman and progressed through the Royal Artillery and the Parachute Regiment to the SAS.

In February 1965, his Squadron, 22 SAS, was deployed to Borneo, where terrorist lurked in the jungle, waiting to ambush unsuspecting British troops.

Scholey paints a vivid picture of life in the stinking, hot jungle, where mines and booby traps were a fact of life - and death.

He said: "Most soldiers find the jungle a very hostile environment. You move very slowly because it isn't safe to use ridges, rivers, tracks and paths.

"You constantly went from sweat, rain and humidity, and this means that your skin chafes and your feet rot, and you're under constant attack from insects, leeches and even the occasional snake. We even had to strain our tea through our teeth to avoid swallowing all the insects swimming in it.

"Around 1900 hours, when the sun goes down, you stop entirely because it's pitch black. Underneath the jungle canopy, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face, but you can hear all kinds of strange noises,-- insects, monkeys, birds, squeaking, hooting, jabbering and crashing amongst the trees, which can terrify the uninitiated."

On one occasion he was attacked by a furious orang-utan and had to shoot it.

Scholey went from Borneo to another hotspot, Aden in the Middle East, where temperatures could reach a blistering130 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

They were up against small, heavily armed bands of Soviet-backed rebels nicknamed the Red Wolves.

On the second tour, an SAS trooper by the name of Yogi was shot and died from his wounds, bringing home the brutal nature of war.

Scholey recalled: "Yogi was soaked in his own blood, lying in a semi-foetal position amongst the rocks, as if trying to hug himself.

"He'd been hit maybe five or six times but he was still conscious, and in dreadful pain."

Scholey narrowly escaped death himself in Oman when a mortar round detonated as it left the barrel.

He said: " A strange dream like sensation came over me. Everything went quiet and for a few seconds I could not think what was happening. I thought, that's it I'm dead."

But Scholey escaped with minor injuries even though his head was only two metres away from the the explosion.

The SAS, previously a covert unit which avoided publicity, was thrust into the international spotlight during the Iranian Embassy siege in May 1980.

Film of their exploits, when they stormed the embassy to free hostages, was beamed lived around the world.

The team scaled down the back of the building on ropes, threw in stun grenades, then shot dead four of the six terrorists. A fifth was killed by a sniper stationed at Hyde Park.

The dramatic hostage rescue was hailed as the SAS's greatest triumph. Prior to the assault, Scholey had been detailed to act as an hostage in a counter-terrorism exercise to prepare troopers for such a scenario

Scholey played the part of a VIP taken hostage in a mock siege. He was gagged and tied up. His SAS colleagues rolled him down a grass bank, and left him for half an hour in the pouring rain while they decided the next move.

They then picked him up and threw him back into the building with the make believe terrorist inside, joking: "Have him back, he's a creep".

There are many such amusing interludes in his military career, including the time he shot an English bull mastiff, the mascot of the Devon and Dorset regiment, in Cyprus.

The regiment held a full military funeral, and Scholey, who had been ordered to shoot stray dogs near the camp, was put on a murder charge.

He recalled: "I thought there's a big dog. There must be a lot of fleas on that one and opened fire. It did not have a collar or any identification. I like animals, but this job had to be done because the stray dogs were spreading disease."

"I was initially put on a murder charge for that, but my sergeant major saw the funny side of it and I got let off."

Scholey refuses to say whether he ever shot another human.

He said: "Certainly I've shot at people who have then gone down, but you can rarely tell if that's because they've been killed, wounded, fallen over in shock or simply dived for cover.

"Even on ambush in Borneo, at a range of less than 50m, I couldn't say for sure if I hit anybody. I probably did - that's all I can say - and they probably died."

Scholey left the SAS at the age of 46 after the Falklands War. He became a bodyguard, with his clients ranging from Mohammed al Fayed, owner of Harrods, to pop singer Cliff Richard, "a very nice man". He also got the contract to run the security operation for Miss World.

Scholey said: "I was surrounded by the world's most glamorous women. They were all lovely. After a while you don't think about it because when you have a security team to organise, your mind is on other things.

I remember once organising a photo shoot by a swimming pool. I was so engrossed in trying to ensure the security was right that I hardly turned a hair as some of the most gorgeous females in the world were taking off their clothes in front of me."

Today, Scholey, is a father-of-two who lectures on security.

He said: "The jungles of Borneo are a world away from where I grew up, and if you'd told me back then that I was going to be a career soldier for nearly 30 years, and that most of those years were going to be spent slogging around some of the wildest parts of the world, I'd have said you were mad.

"It just didn't happen to little lads like me from Brighton.

"I look back at some of the things I have done and asked myself, how in the hell did I get out of it alive? There have been times when I have been feet away from someone who would have shot me if they knew I was there and other occasions when shrapnel has gone inches over my head.

"But in the SAS, you are trained to look after yourself. If I had my life over again, I would not change it one little bit."

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