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Ray Kane
Ray Kane was born in Ireland. He was in the South African Police when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island in 1964.In 1965, while hitchhiking through ...view moreRay Kane was born in Ireland. He was in the South African Police when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island in 1964.In 1965, while hitchhiking through Tanzania en route to England, he crossed the path along which Che Guevara would lead his Cuban Brigade just three days later into the Congo and his first revolutionary defeat.Kane’s first novel, The Sowti Squad, was born of these two events.Suspected of being a mercenary while hitchhiking through Juba, the Sudanese government arrested and deported Kane to Uganda. Hoping to continue his homeward journey by ship, Kane travelled through Uganda to Mombasa, Kenya’s port on its Indian Ocean coastline. Fortune smiled on Kane. The Braemar Castle, en route from Cape Town to London, was in port and had just medevaced a broken-legged crewman back to Durban. There was a vacancy. Kane became Seaman Kane and worked as a steward on the luxury liner to Tilbury (London) docks.Commissioned into the British Army in 1965, Ray Kane served in Germany and Libya. In 1968 he joined the Omani Army. Commissioned as a Captain, he was promoted Major after a year and served for a further two years as Red Company Commander, Desert Regiment, in the Dhofar War. He led the Red Company palace assault group which seized Sultan Said bin Taimur al-Busaidi on 23 July 1970, in the coup d'état which started Oman's renaissance, and in which Kane was wounded.Leaving Red Company in 1972, Kane commanded Firqa Forces – Dhofari irregular tribesmen. He was "sacked on-the-spot", and quite rightly too, in Kane's opinion, by Colonel Mike "Oddjob" Harvey in May 1972, after playfully shooting-up the RAF Salalah (Dhofar) Officers' Mess and its open-air cinema.Asked by a friend if he had been drunk, mad or both, Kane replied, 'Neither, I did it for the Craic.’Ray Kane founded his security company, Trawl Services Ltd in, in 1982. He is divorced and has a son and four daughters.view less