The remarkable Simon Reeve tells Fiona Shield about being the first writer to lift the lid on Al Qaeda, getting arrested by the KGB and surviving in the most dangerous city in the world

His life reads like a Hollywood film – on the trail of terrorists for The Sunday Times armed with only a walkie talkie and a pen at 19, published a book warning the world of the apocalyptic aims of the extremist group we now call al-Qaeda in 1998, thrust into the spotlight as one of the world’s leading terrorism experts following the World Trade Centre attacks three years later and now following in Michael Palin’s footsteps as author of travelogues that shine a light into corners of the world that don’t often reach our media, including the hugely successful BBC Tropics trilogy. But Simon Reeve remains characteristically modest and self-effacing as we chat through his life in his cosy North London home, surrounded by eclectic mementos from his travels to an incredible 90-plus countries, and the hours interrupted only by his frequent trips to the kitchen to ply me with more refreshments.

You are one of the country’s best-loved travelogue writers. Have you always been inquisitive?
I have. I’ve always been fascinated by knowledge, by learning things, by having experiences. I certainly didn’t shine at school, but I loved finding information outside of it –
I was inquisitive in the sense that I always wanted to know what was over the next hill. When I was young my world was quite restricted. I grew up in Acton, West London, and my life tended to revolve around my little part of London rather than London as a whole. One of the most enjoyable things I can ever remember doing was my gran would take my brother and I on “mystery tours”, when she would pop us in the car and give us control of whatever direction we wanted to go in. It was a means of exploring in a safe environment, and I believe important in the development of my interests as well.

Did you travel in your childhood?
My childhood holidays were in Dorset, mostly to a place near Studland. It has what I believe to be one of the best beaches in the UK, and is still very special to me. We used to rent a tiny little cottage and go there twice a year. It was a more innocent time so we could go off exploring, in a way that you might not let your kids do now.

How did you get into journalism?
I left school at 17 and had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had dreams and thought journalism could be interesting but had no connection to it. I was on the dole for a bit, then my dad saw an advert in the newspaper for a post boy at The Sunday Times and I somehow got the job. I was very excited because suddenly a whole new world was opened up to me – I was working with grown-ups in an incredibly proactive environment and ready to jump on any editorial opportunities. Because my job involved getting to know who everyone was quickly, I soon identified who was influential and started badgering them to give me some extra work. Eventually some kindly souls took pity on me and got me to do some chores, which then built and built. By the time I was 19 I was doing basic research into the smuggling of nuclear materials and some quite serious arms-dealing investigations. My big break was finding a couple of South African terrorists on the run in the UK, though I was actually late to meet them because I’d gone to the post office in Lincolnshire to send a postcard to my mum!

Your first book The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism was a New York Times bestseller after the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001. Where did your interest in terrorism stem from?
The more I’d found out about the South African terrorists the more intrigued I was by terrorism. These people had had a significant impact on the peace process in South Africa – they’d blown up taxi ranks and killed innocent people – and yet they were fundamentally really pathetic individuals. Once I’d seen how ridiculous and socially inadequate they were I was amazed what they were capable of and the subject became even more interesting to me, so I did some investigations. Then in 1993, mysterious figures attacked the World Trade Centre for the first time and I started looking into it within a few hours.

Was it for work or your own interest?
Both really. The beauty of my career is that it has been the chance to explore what I find interesting, while earning a living at the same time. I started working on it personally and we wrote a couple of articles for the paper, and then public interest subsided. But the more I researched, the more I realised that there was a much bigger story behind the scenes, so I came up with the idea of writing a book when I was 21. It was outrageous, but I was young, I didn’t have any responsibilties. It took about five years to research and write it.