From Butcher's Boy to Beefeater: War hero, Beefeater, Queen’s guard. Autobiography of a true Great Briton.

by Geoffrey Abbott

If you've ever said, "Well, I'll be hanged!" you probably don't know what actually happens in an execution chamber. Geoff Abbott does – he's even had a hangman drop a noose around his neck!

'From Butcher's Boy to Beefeater' is a riveting account of former Beefeater, Geoffrey Abbott's extraordinary life. Join paratroopers, as he did, in their airborne training... experience conditions aboard a troopship in the U-boat-infested waters of the Atlantic... endure a torpedo attack in the Indian Ocean during WWII... or find out what it's like to live in a haunted Royal Palace.

Discover how to hold a heron; how to cope on a safari with a big-game hunter; belly-dance in the approved Baghdad manner; or carry an occupied coffin. Find out how Geoff was invited to choose the President of the United States; how he's been a Member of the Queen's Bodyguard, and how he knows how to fly a helicopter backwards (lacking rear-view mirrors or a beep-beep device!).

If a career in television or mace-bearing is beckoning... if you need to brush-up on your molinology... or improve your wrist action when swinging an execution axe, stop looking, as your search is at an end.

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 14, 2014

About the author

Geoffrey Abbott served for many years as a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. Author of nineteen books and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica/, he has made numerous television appearances. He lives in London.