Garry Kilworth exclusive: Author of the novelised Highlander

Liseli, from the BLOT team, sat down with author Garry Kilworth to uncover the journey of his impressive career.

We’ll get to the novelisation of Highlander, to the crazy adventures that came with travelling across the world from the age of 15 to spending 19 years in the RAF. But to understand the inspiring life of Garry Kilworth, we must travel back to when he was only a teenager, travelling from country to country with his father. 

“My father was in the RAF, so I went to 22 different schools even before the age of 15,” Garry explained from his living room. “I joined immediately at the age of 15, so I hadn’t known anything else until the age of 34. 

“I’d known lots of countries and I think that’s more what influenced my writing rather than the job— the travel and seeing different cultures.”

Garry’s childhood years were spent within remote RAF stations, the best of which were in what we now know to be South Yemen, but was a sunny-eyed, curious Garry knew as Aden.  His adventures would open his mind and provide experiences some of us could only read about.

“You got lost in a desert in Southern Saudi Arabia when you were 14, right?” Liseli asked, “What was that like, it sounds terrifying to me.”

“It was scary, but it was also quite a bit romantic, you know,” Garry replied, smiling. “It wouldn’t have been if I wasn’t found – but it was two days without water which was quite scary. 

“We were Boy Scouts– me and my friend, Graham. We were given maps, but they were wrong. We were supposed to go out there to earn a badge, camp overnight and then come back again. But that went wrong – we both got lost.”

After Garry turned 15, he immediately joined the RAF, following in the footsteps of his father, to be a telegraphist and cryptographer – but he’d always been an author at heart. 

From the age of 12….

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Garry Kilworth

Garry Kilworth grew up with his father on remote RAF stations, which expanded his creativity and left him without much else to do but explore and read. After establishing an impressive career as a sci-fi and fantasy writer, he was approached to write the novelization of the film Highlander. His novel Rogue Officer won the Charles Whiting Award for Literature and The Ragthorn, written with Robert Holdstock, won both the British Science Fiction Award and the World Fantasy Award.