Barbara Cole has worked as a journalist on newspapers in England, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa, specialising in court, human-interest and business work. She is now based in Durban, where she continues to contribute to newspapers and magazines. Barbara worked as a High Court reporter for the Rhodesia Herald at the start of the bush war and saw many an insurgent, albeit from the safety of the Press bench. Later, when she worked for the publications department of the Ministry of Information, her job involved distributing dreaded wartime communiques from Combined Operations Headquarters telling of the latest incidents and casualties. Then, having relocated to South Africa at the end of the war, she spent several years researching and compiling the story of the Rhodesian SAS, one of the most fascinating stories to come out of the war. She managed to track down hundreds of SAS men and get them to tell their experiences. The fact that secrecy is a way of life with the SAS makes this all the more remarkable.
