Geordie: Fighting Legend of the Modern SAS

Geordie Doran ranks as one of the most remarkable fighting soldiers of the twentieth century. After growing up in Jarrow in the 1930s Geordie quit the local factory where he worked in 1946, to sign up as a private soldier. It was the first step in a career spanning 40 years during which he served in the infantry, the Parachute Regiment and the SAS. Geordie saw active service in Germany, Cyprus, the Korean War and Suez; he became an expert in jungle warfare in Malaya and in Borneo, as well as special operations in the deserts of Oman and Yemen. Returning to England in the early 1970s, Geordie was interrogated by Special Branch about his secret activities in Yemen. Not long after, a serious road accident put an end to his frontline soldiering career but he found a new and vital role in the SAS, as a permanent staff instructor with 23 SAS (TA) training new recruits. He left the SAS in 1972, but could not settle to civilian life. He found himself a job as a Storeman in the SAS Quartermaster’s Stores – a job which lasted another 12 years until ill health kept him from marching to the nearest barracks to join up once more.