WHEN Major Nick Sawyer stands down from regimental duties at home or abroad, he puts up his 'Gone Fishin' sign. In a new book, the former Ludlow College student recalls a career that has already taken him to 22 different countries and, often, dangerous conflicts. He tells a fisherman's tale or two to JEN GREEN about slipping away for a spot of fishing between soldiering duties.

There are no half measures when it comes to the dedication of a fisherman or a soldier - so says Nick Sawyer, grandson of the famous Avon river-keeper Frank Sawyer.

Nick should know - his military career has taken him to conflicts and riverbanks across the world and, when he packs his kit-bag, he always finds a small space for his fold-up rod and line.

Born in Hampshire, where his father worked for the Forestry Commission, Nick was brought up in Ludlow and educated first at Ludlow School and then Ludlow College before being sponsored by the army to study Material Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Commissioned into the army in 1994, the parachute-trained gunnery officer now serving with the Royal Horse Artillery, was decorated for gallantry during operations in Kosova in 1999.

"My career has covered peacekeeping among the burning villages and mass graves of the Balkans to fighting off hornet attacks in the Malaysian jungles, but somehow I manage to have a hook and line to hand." Nick says.

"On patrol I tuck my little fold-up rod into my bag or, like my boyhood days in Ludlow, sometimes use a simple stick and line to fish, but, wherever I am, it's a good way to relax.

"All over the world fishing becomes a talking point and it's on the river bank that you meet the locals.

"For a few hours the common language of fishing cuts across the bloody backdrop of war and you begin to understand each other's place in the picture."

Do quiet moments on some foreign riverbank during terrible conflicts draw him back to his south Shropshire boyhood?

"Of course they do, the fish might be different but the memories remain.

"Back in Wiltshire, where I live now, it's salmon and trout.

"Overseas I fish for huchen, kelah, mosquitofish, tilapia and sheat fish using nets, rods and traps.

"Either way, the sport is the same and thinking about it brings it all home.

"Anyway, it's in the blood, my grandfather was the great Wiltshire river keeper on the Avon and was also the author of a number of fishing books - so I hope I've inherited that gene too."

It's clear that Nick has. Fishing on the Front covers some terrible conflicts and human suffering caused by war, and yet also shows the humour and camaraderie of good modern soldiering coupled with a few fisherman's tales to make light of the situation.

Married to Melody, Nick has three children: Fyrne, aged six, Freddie, four, and Tilly, two, and, at the end of each tour of duty he looks forward to returning to the family home.

"We are well settled in Wiltshire and love the countryside," he says."It's always a joy to come home and of course get the rods out on my grandfather's patch."

l Fishing on the Frontline (ISBN 1-873674-77-5) is published by Ludlow-based Merlin Unwin Books and is available at Castle Bookshop, Ludlow, and Books, Books, Books, Tenbury Wells, for £17.99.