His life is not easy to emulate and includes conscription into the SAS, exploits in Sierra Leone and Angola that made him a multi-millionaire, and later leading the so-called ‘Wonga Coup’ – a failed attempt to overthrow Teodoro Obiang, President of Equatorial Guinea , deposed – after which he survived malaria for five years in African prisons, including 18 months in leg irons in solitary confinement in a cell ‘1.8 meters wide and seven paces long’.
But don’t assume that Simon Mann, at 71, is in the mood to fall into a nostalgic dotage.
On the contrary, I can reveal that the former Old Etonian Scots Guards officer has left his third wife, the vivacious Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, and is now apparently being comforted by a woman more than 20 years his junior.
“Simon and Amanda have split,” a friend of the couple said, adding that Mann has left the south coast home where they have lived since shortly after his release in 2009.
Mann is now involved in the cultivation of medicinal cannabis in North Macedonia and would not comment.
Old Etonian former Scots Guards officer Simon Mann has left his third wife, the vivacious Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, and is now apparently comforted by a woman more than twenty years his junior. Pictured: Simon with Amanda in 2012
Jack Mann (right) is a friend of Prince Harry and one of Simon’s sons from his first marriage
But a friend says it’s not a temporary separation. “They’re getting divorced,” the friend tells me, saying the marriage has been “very difficult” since Mann’s return from Africa.
“They decided to stay together until their youngest child left home.”
This summary surprises locals, who regularly saw the Manns, both dressed in black, running in Lymington, and visitors to their wisteria-clad home overlooking the Isle of Wight.
“They seemed completely comfortable with each other,” one person told me. ‘It’s clear that Simon has led a special life, but Amanda liked that. Liked the drama. He called her ‘the Duchess’.
“He seemed to appreciate that she would keep the show going, whatever he had in mind.”
More recently, it seemed that the younger Mann generation had the lion’s share of adventures – especially Jack Mann, one of Simon’s sons from his first marriage.
As well as Jack, who married last year, being named as Prince Harry’s ‘real best man’, a planned business trip to Libya was interrupted when he and his colleagues tried to fly in from Malta.
The authorities decided that their paperwork needed to be ‘rectified’ – a process that took five days.
The Duke of Sussex stood shoulder to shoulder with his best man, Jack Mann, and his other close allies in the ‘band of brothers’ photo at Windsor Castle on the evening of the royal wedding
His father’s long captivity seemed destined to end in death. Funded by ‘Smelly’, Lebanese fixer Ely Calil, who later died when he fell down the stairs at his home in Holland Park, west London, and was reportedly helped by ‘Scratcher’ – Sir Mark Thatcher, son of Lady Thatcher – prompted the attempted ‘Wonga Coup’ President Obiang promised that he would eat Mann’s testicles and drag his naked body through the streets.
Amanda, who fought for her husband’s release, showed an unquenchable spirit all the way and bought a T-shirt with the slogan: “A man is for Christmas.” Not for life.’
Unfortunately, that has now proven to be correct. But Amanda, 58, isn’t completely alone, even though the youngest of her four children has left home.
“Her mother is with her,” a friend tells me. “She’s been living with Amanda and Simon for years.”