I grew up in central London, where my Welsh father taught chemical engineering at Imperial College and my mother did various things like being a school secretary and running her own successful children’s playgroup. I went to the local primary school, followed by the Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and the University of York where I got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
At some point in my late teens I decided that I wanted to be an army officer and whilst I was at university I sat the army’s Regular Commissions Board which I – somehow – managed to pass, so after I graduated, I went to Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps.
As a regular officer I served on operations in Northern Ireland – including a tour as an infantry platoon commander with the 1st Battalion, The Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire – and Central America, as well as helping to set up the humint teams which debriefed the returning human shield hostages from Kuwait and Iraq in 1990 after Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Since my regular service in Northern Ireland and Central America, I’ve served on operations in Iraq, where – amongst other things – I organised and supervised the first democratic local elections in Iraqi history in the summer of 2003; and in Afghanistan. I was back in Iraq in 2019-20, embedded with the US Army as part of the coalition against ISIS and I spent a large chunk of the past 18 months in Kenya working on communications and engagement for the British Army Training Unit.
I left the regular army after seven years having decided I wanted to be a writer. A chance encounter with literary agent Andrew Lownie led to my first book contract a few months later and I’ve been writing professionally, as well as taking photographs and illustrating, ever since. I’ve written a number of books under my own name – mostly history but including the best-selling Fighting Fit – and ghostwritten several military and intelligence related autobiographies. I write occasional features and news stories for newspapers and magazines – including most of the British national dailies at one time or another – and I’ve appeared in or been involved in making various documentary films for TV. Most recently, I’ve worked in the ‘information’ domain: as a contractor I set up and led the Disinformation Analysis Team for a UK government department, analysing the origin and spread of misinformation and disinformation as we moved towards Brexit; and I spent some time on a counter-IS project.
In addition to this, I also make fairly regular appearances on various broadcast news outlets – TV and radio – in the UK and overseas, usually talking about military related subjects.
I have a lovely family and we’re fortunate enough to be able to live in both London and in South Shropshire, near Ludlow and the Welsh border.
Adrian Weale 
Adrian, Typo, Iraqi elections summer 2004, I was an election monitor
Nope. We held local elections for town councils in Dhi Qar province from August 2003 onwards
You did, with that nice Rory bloke, I did the National Elections…apologise..did you ever make it to the palace…must have met ?
Rory Stewart took over from me a month or so after I left Iraq – the guy who originally came in had to go home for personal reasons – but yes. It was an odd time!
Hi Adrian
Thanks for your detailed obituary of Sam Pivnik and have only just finished his book ‘Survivor’ which I would recommend to everyone. There is a glaring omission in the current ‘Wiki’ article about Sam, in that his brother Nathan doesn’t even get a mention. I don’t know if you are able to correct that (I’ve never attempted such a thing I must admit).
One big reason for contacting you is to ask if Nathan is still alive as I can’t seem to find the answer by doing searches.
Best regards,
Mike
Nathan died about ten years ago, although his widow is still alive.
Thanks very much for clearing that up – much appreciated.
Dear Mr Weale,
Being an inspired reader of your excellent books “SS – A New Story” and “The Renegades”,
I would be very thankful to get in touch with you via e-mail regarding the BFC and their partly appearance at The Oder in March 1945 with the 3. Company of SS-Panzer-Aufklärungsabteilung 11 “Nordland” under its Swedish CO, Hans-Gösta Pehrsson. I refer to my and Lars Gyllenhaal´s book “Swedes at War, 1914-1945” in its US-edition 2010 at Aberjona Press. PA. In a private
mail correspondence I would be able to get into more details.
Sincerely,
Lennart Westberg (Mr.)
Sundsvall, Sweden
Dear Mr Westberg,
Thank you for your message. I do apologise for not replying sooner.
I am very interested in any more information about the BFC’s brief appearance on the Oder Front in 3/SS-PAA. 11.
Best wishes,
Adrian Weale
Hello sir. You once described me as the finest young soldier you had ever met but I had to learn that not all soldiers learned things as quick as I did. 7 platoon C Company Ballykinler Northern Ireland, Cpl Rhodes. I have wrote a trilogy and recently been published and would love a critique, or just an hello. I truly hope that life is giving you a fair shout since our last time together and if you wish to make contact that would be great. Sincerely Andrew G Rhodes.
Andy Rhodes! How nice to hear from you. Hard to believe it’s been more than 30 years.
What are you up to these days, apart from writing? And where are you living?
Best wishes,
Adrian
I noticed you include Irving in your bibliography of your SS book. What are your thoughts given he is controversial? Should one read his books? Are they useful?
Thanks
Irving is a controversial source and I am very wary of trusting anything he has written on issues of fact. On the other hand, I do think he has some useful insight into relationships within the government of the 3rd Reich and particularly into Hitler’s inner circle.
So I would say: use his books, but use them with great caution.
Good morning Mr Weale,
I hope this message finds you well and I also hope that you don’t mind me contacting you.
I am part of a group of Army Veterans and over the last six years we have indirectly or directly raised over £36,000 which has been donated to over ninety charities.
One of the ways that we have raised the above total is by selling mainly signed Military books.
We run a scheme that pays the author £5 for each book that they sign the £5 is donated to charity of the authors choice.
We also send an email receipt to the author to prove we have paid the charity, this is at no cost to the author as all costs are met by the buyer of the book.
Would you be interested in possibly signing a couple of books, if this is not for you then no problem at all and many thanks for taking the time to read this message.
Cheers
Stuart