A Fateful Life

The memoirs of Major Basil Curtis are a testament to the idea of fate playing its hand.

Throughout his life, he has risen above the hardest challenges that life had to offer and with a bit of luck, turned them to his advantage.During the Second World War, especially in the ill-fated Malayan campaign of 1942, he used his remarkable efforts with surprising success.

The war correspondents, under his leadership, managed to get their stories out to the world, often from the most primitive, uncivilised environments.It is due to the author's resilience and a degree of luck, that he not only witnessed such horrific atrocity during the war, but that he managed to use these experiences later in his life as inspiration as he pursued a rewarding and outstanding career as a broadcaster.

He worked in this capacity for the BBC for some 20 years and hosted his own TV magazine programmes.

He regularly commentated on the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and as a British delegate he appeared in many national and international conferences representing his country.But his real successes were to benefit many more people, when he helped to raise an incredible 3,000,000 for many different charities, especially disabled charities.

His amazing achievements were recognised when he was honoured twice for his outstanding work for others.It seems incredible that he could have achieved so much in one lifetime and though most of it was through sheer determination, one must also question how the hand of fate plays a part in all our lives.