A WAR veteran who has seen success as a poet and is often seen leading Chard’s procession as the town’s mace bearer has had a book published.

Clive Sanders developed the story based on true events which happened to him while working as an army scuba diver in 1980s.

Clive was the diving officer for the Eastern Sovereign Base Area of Cyprus, based in Dhekelia.

He said: “I was acting as dive leader to a bunch of army scuba divers, plus a visiting Lebanese diver.

“The Lebanon at that time was being torn apart by a civil war and many Lebanese civilians would often come to Cyprus for a break from the fighting at home.

“We dived from a cave known to the local divers as Chapel Cave because it was just below a small church on a remote headland.

“I had dived this site many, many times before and never found anything of interest on those dives.

“However, on his one and only dive with me in Cyprus, the Lebanese diver managed to find a huge gold ring with a motif of flames on its very large face.

“I am convinced that he simply hid the ring and took it back to the Lebanon with him.”

Clive has based his story around this event, and added fictional tales of illegal drug trafficking, mysterious murders.

He added: “ I have also entwined it with ancient historical facts about Cyprus that even involves ancient Greek and Phoenician Gods and I am now very proud indeed of the final story.”

To read ‘Chapel Cave’ by Clive Sanders, you can now book on Amazon for Kindle.