MY ADVICE to any young journalists just setting out on their careers is if you meet someone elderly with an interesting story get it written down immediately. Tomorrow may be too late.

I should have learned the lesson years ago but keep adding names to my list of 'interviews to be done when I have more time' — only to cross them off when I discover it is too late.

John Macrae knows the feeling well. As a boy, away at public school during the war, he was vaguely aware his father was involved in an exciting, very secret mission he never talked about with his family, either then or in many years to come.

It was not until 1971 when he was invited to attend a swish reception in London to launch a new book John discovered his dad was one of the key members of a military intelligence operation commissioned by the Prime Minister to invent and test new methods of winning the war.

The book was called Winston Churchill's Toyshop and it was written by Colonel Stuart Macrae who helped to start a department with the rather innocent title of MD 1 (Ministry of Defence 1) and was its second in command throughout the war. It was a top secret unit which, on Churchill's orders, was set free from the usual red tape and frustrations of service ministries.

"I knew nothing about it until I attended that book launch," says John Macrae. "How I wish I had talked to my father when I was younger and learned more, at first hand, about his exciting life."

Now retired and living in Paignton, John looks back with pride on his father's wartime role. So much so he has had the book reprinted. It was launched for the second time at a reception at the Torbay Bookshop in Paignton last Friday.

John gave a talk about his father's working relationship with Winston Churchill and the secret work which went on in a tiny underground workshop housed in the cellars of Radio Normandie in Portland Place, London.

The unit later moved to a country mansion in Buckinghamshire where an astonishing variety of weapons were perfected, ranging from small booby traps to heavy artillery. They included the 'sticky bomb' and the 'limpet bomb' and also giant bridge-carrying assault tanks.

Col Macrae did not have to rely on memory because he kept a diary and also a large quantity of official files and records. He says he was nearly court martialled when, as a witness at the Royal Commission of Awards to Inventors, he disclosed he still had the documents.

"The Crown Counsel grilled me about this and I became a temporary press sensation under such headlines as 'Colonel keeps top secrets at home'. I was ordered to hand over all these documents to a security officer who would call to collect them. But he never did call so I still have them."

Many war books can be pretty dull but this one is written with a pawky humour and sense of rebelliousness keeps your interest. It will appeal not only to those of us who remember those exciting days but also a younger generation who seem to be fascinated by stories about what grandad (and of course grandma) did to stop Hitler ruling the world.

Copies of Winston Churchill's Toyshop can be obtained from the Torbay Bookshop in Torquay Road, Paignton.