A book about the Cyprus emergency could raise £10,000 for Help for Heroes.

That’s the minimum former lieutenant Richard Stiles of Chippenham hopes to raise from sales of his book Mayhem in the Med, chronicling the five-year emergency in which 416 British troops and police were killed.

Mr Stiles, 50, who served in the Royal Support Corps, now the Logistics Corps, is donating £1 from each book sold. He said: “Being an ex-regimental officer myself, Help for Heroes was an obvious choice of charity.”

The book took five years to compile and coincides with the 50th anniversary of the end of the conflict.

The father-of-two put it together in a newspaper style, using photographs and diary extracts from veterans, as well as Press articles, including one about a soldier from Marshfield Road, Chippenham, who was wounded.

“A lot of veterans have told me they found it useful because they were only sent there for six months or so, and did not know what happened while they were at home.

“I had one old boy tell me that one day he heard gunshots and found three men wounded in the street. He never knew what had happened to them, and through the book found out that one of them had survived.”

The book is available from Waterstones in Chippenham, or by emailing savpub@dircon.co.uk and anyone who orders from the publishers can request a signed copy.