FAMOUS former SAS soldier and now bestselling author Andy McNab enthralled Andover College students with an inspirational presentation about his military experiences and career. 
Andy is the latest in the college’s new expert speaker programme providing real-life stories for students and inspiring them towards successful futures.
Andy shared the background details of his life as a teenage "delinquent", and how on joining the army at the age of 17 with a reading age of a nine-year-old he was motivated by a captain in the education core. 
His talk to students focused on the theme of 'acquiring knowledge to achieve success'; how, as an SAS soldier, he would spend weeks in the education centre acquiring new skills such as learning maths and complex formulas, concluding that “dynamite doesn’t blow up bridges, maths does”. 
On leaving the army, after 10 years as an SAS soldier, Andy was approached to see if he would consider writing about being captured in Iraq.
He said he had never written a book before but following his mantra that 'knowledge is power' he went to the experts to acquire the knowledge before writing the critically acclaimed Bravo Two Zero. He has since written two other non-fiction bestsellers, is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers, several other fiction and non-fiction titles as well as a series of books for young adults. 
Due to Andy’s literary success Hollywood came calling asking him to work on films including Heat, Black Hawk Down, Transporter 1, 2, 3 and 4 and The Expendables. 
 The next expert speaker to visit the college will be language expert professor David Crystal OBE.