HOWWE MET: MURRAY SMITH AND FREDERICK FORSYTH

Murray Smith, 54, was born in Glasgow. He left the Camer- onian Scottish Rifles to join Grampian Television, later becoming a reserve officer in the Special Forces. Apart from writing extensively for television, he has written two novels. He lives in Hampshire with his wife and their children. Frederick Forsyth was born in 1938. He did National Service in the RAF for two years, then went into journalism. In 1970, he published the bestselling Day of the Jackal; in 1994 he published his ninth novel. He lives in Hertfordshire with his second wife and two sons from his previous marriage.

MURRAY SMITH: I met Freddy about eight years ago at a garden party hosted by David Frost. We had been briefly introduced two years earlier at Langan's restaurant, but it wasn't until the garden party that we had our first real conversation. David Frost has parties every year for the rich and famous; I was the only person there I didn't recognise. It was a bit of a crush and we literally bumped into each other. Freddy said, "Terribly sorry", in that clipped British way he has, rather like a Forties movie actor. Freddy and I started talking, and me being a hustling writer I suggested that we have lunch. At the time, he was an internationally famous author and I had a strong bankable record as a television dramatist.

Not long afterwards, we agreed that between us we had enough clout to do things ourselves - why should we continue to make film producers rich? The idea we had was quickly seized by Greg Dyke and Nick Elliot at LWT, and out of that came a series of six movies for television.

From that small beginning, we've done each other dearly and made ourselves a couple of million, which is a great help in a friendship. Our work would always be based around lunch, where Freddy would tell a story which I would later turn into a scenario and then a script. I think we would have fallen out if we'd tried to help each other with our writing because we are very individualistic, big-headed writers. The only time we came close to a spat was when I wrote the third film in the series and Freddy loathed it. He telephoned me, slightly hysterical because of the time factor, and I made notes from his tirade. I rewrote it in four days and sent it to him. When he telephoned to say he was happy with it, there was a slight pause and he said, "I think on the credits of this one, instead of it being based on an original story by, it should say based on an outburst by Frederick Forsyth."

While we were on the plane coming back from filming in Zagreb, in 1990, I gave him another scenario to read and while he was chuckling over bits, I realised that here was Frederick Forsyth enjoying what I'd written and I began to think about writing a novel myself.

It wasn't until we'd put the whole project to bed that I asked with great trepidation, over lunch, what he thought about me writing a novel. He said he was asked that all the time and that he had to think of different ways of letting people down, but that he thought I could do it. He read the manuscript of Devil's Juggler and phoned to say, "Well done, you've cracked it first time around."

When we first met he was quite reserved and shy because he puts up a screen to protect himself from sharks and hangers-on. Over the years, I've learnt that his slightly wonderful pompous air is a protective shell. He's a most entertaining companion once he's relaxed. We like a lot of the same things: I've got a house in the country, so has he; he's got hundreds of sheep, I've got a couple of dozen; he loves old motor cars and so do I. He's given me good advice about sheep. I recently found I had too many for my land and phoned Freddy to ask if he wanted to buy some. When his shepherd arrived to look at them, he reported back in ecstasy that they were fine Charollais sheep and that they ought to start their own herd. Freddy and I did a deal, but I made him swear that he wouldn't take his sheep to the same shows as me.

He has a formidable memory. All these chats he has with people in White's Club, or in the bush in Nigeria, eventually percolate through his mind on to the printed page. He's pretty unforgiving, certainly nobody's yes man. We never discuss our sources, not even with each other, with the result that after years of working closely together, of buying and selling sheep and being friends, I mentioned a senior MI6 agent who has recently left the service and Freddy said, "Good grief, do you know him as well?"

We have mutual regard for one another and each understand what the other is about. We've both travelled in strange circumstances to odd parts of the globe, yet we never ask each other more than we should. We also share something that neither of us would admit to our wives: that once you're hooked on danger, it's difficult not to go back for more.

FREDERICK FORSYTH: We met about 10 years ago at Langan's, where Michael Caine's agent briefly introduced us. I was told that Murray had a background in the Special Forces, which was interesting to hear. At the time, I was writing The Fourth Protocol and Murray was a highly successful screenwriter about to embark on his television series, The Paradise Club. I can't remember the sequence of events which followed, only that our first project was Murray's idea. He suggested that we approach a major television company and get a commission to devise and write a series of spy thrillers. We formed a partnership, and 18 months later we eventually got the green light from LWT to make six films during 1989.

Murray and I have a similar approach to life, which is rather irreverent and iconoclastic. We both come from middle-class, not particularly wealthy families. We both grew up in small towns, me in Kent, him in the highlands of Scotland. We both got ourselves a decent education by way of scholarship and we both used serious hard graft to leave our small towns and explore the big wide world. By our thirties, we had both independently gravitated towards professional writing.

From early on in our friendship, we realised that we had a lot in common and knew a lot of the same people in the covert world. We are like two geriatrics sitting on a park bench talking about the cold war. We were often, unbeknown to each other, in the same places, covering the same events from different sides. Even after 10 years, we find coincidences in our backgrounds. I'll say, "Were you in so and so? So was I. What were you doing there?" He'll say, "Never mind. What were you doing there?" People who have Murray's sort of background simply don't blurt out everything. If anyone tells you within the first 10 minutes that they were in the SAS, they weren't. Behind Murray's jovial bonhomie, there is a very private man.

In 1988 I bought a farm in Hert- fordshire; two years later Murray bought a place in Hampshire with eight acres. He found the mowing in summer back- breaking, so I told him that I'd found that the best mowers were sheep. They'll crop the lawn, give you a woolly cardigan in autumn, fertilise the ground and reproduce themselves. He then bought himself eight sheep and got interested in pedigrees. He has his rams and his MGB GT and I have my sheep and my C-type Jaguar. Both our wives regard these vagaries with condescending contempt.

When we are on a project, we meet once a fortnight to bounce ideas off each other. At other times we meet at least once a month and discuss everything from politics and philosophy to females - we have rather similar tastes.

About four years ago, after we'd finished our television series, Murray mentioned he wanted to write a novel and I said "great". One of the things about novels is that there isn't really any competition - there is always room for a newcomer. We write very differently, except that we both research intensely. He does what I can't do, which is to work a week on a novel, then have a break for five days and socialise, or travel, or go on holiday before returning to writing. I research for six to 12 months, then go into purdah and write my novels in 45 days, during which time I don't socialise. He's much faster than me, in that I do a novel every three years, and he's written three novels in four years.

Murray's a lot more physical than I am, and also more financially astute. I leave the negotiating up to him. Although we split the profits from the television films 50:50, he did most of the work in writing the scripts. I came into my own when I had to write the novel, The Deceiver, based on the scripts, which we also split 50:50.

I've learnt that there are several layers to him: there is Murray the husband and father and owner of a country house; Murray in quiet conversation with someone in the Special Forces club, and Murray laughing and joking. We've worked together, drunk a lot of wine tog- ether, eaten a fair amount of food together and we know each other's families. We have a relationship of pulling each other's legs, but behind that we are very good friends. !