Mr. Cornwell- Recently, I began reading Wildtrack, (which is, by the way, excellent) and was quite surprised that it seemed so critical of the media. The media figures in Wildtrack are largely callous, manipulative, selfish, and dishonest. What surprised me, truly, is that you yourself worked for the BBC, and I wondered if some of the inspiration for Wildtrack was taken out of your own experiences. (Exaggerated, of course, I doubt most TV moguls murder their wives and have their hired Boers beat up VC recipients' at least not on a regular basis, anyway.) I suppose this sort of rattled me, because of an event that happened about a month ago when I was at the 60th Anniversary of the American invasion of Saipan. This celebration included a visit by General Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, who was returning to Tinian for the first time since flying the Hiroshima mission. After a dedication ceremony, at which the General spoke, the photographers swarmed around him, snapping at each other like dingos fighting over a kill. Not only were they pressing this poor, 90 year-old veteran, (who was so exhausted after his speech he had to resort to a wheelchair) but they were jostling each other aside like children in line, screaming at each other to "Get the hell out of frame." I watched this, shocked, with my own camera dangling lifeless around my neck. An aspiring journalist myself, I was completely aghast at these "professionals" who seemed to have little personal civility and no compassion. Not one of them thanked the General when he left. In any case, what I'm trying to state is this: you really hit the nail on the head when you wrote Wildtrack. There truly are people in the media who are interested in telling stories, but not feeling them. People who write human interest, but without showing any themselves. PS: Glad to hear about the Lifetime Achievement Award. Even if it makes you feel old. (Which it shouldn't, anyone who can reply to a historical query with the sentence "Nah, Nelson rules," clearly does not qualify for that category.) Regards, Robert Rath