A suitable Englishman to be hanged: The bus journey that could have been Bob's last

"For a few minutes it was quite hairy," said Bob, who at the time was travelling through eastern Turkey.

Tension was high because Turkey had invaded Cyprus, and the Turkish press had published pictures of British soldiers seemingly herding Turks at riflepoint into barbed wire enclosures.

"In fact the reason they were being pushed in was because the Greeks on the island wanted to kill them. But a chap on the bus was saying that the British should not be allowed to get away with this, and we have an Englishman here, let's hang him to show them they can't do this sort of thing.

"A small group of Turks on the bus thought it was a great idea and hanging me would make the British sit up and take notice and realise they couldn't bully the Turks.

"Luckily the bus driver wouldn't stop, and we were going through a treeless steppe at the time."

This meant there were no trees to hang Bob from.

"It all blew over, but just for a few minutes my heart did race."

Bob, who is 72 and a retired farmer, lives near Presteigne in Mid Wales and has written his first book, called Horse Games, published by Ludlow publisher Merlin Unwin Books.

It tells of his quest to find the tribal horse games of Asia and Africa, which was sparked by an expedition to Afghanistan in 1972.

Previously he had been in the Household Cavalry and he must be one of the few, and perhaps only, people alive to have commanded a troop of British cavalry from which one of the men under his command was shot off his horse.

It happened in Surrey, when he took his troop on an exercise on land behind the rifle ranges, which turned out to be active that day.

A court of inquiry held him 99 per cent to blame and, with promotion chances blown, he decided to leave the Army. Happily the shot corporal was not seriously hurt.

An incidental feature of his time in the Army was that Household Cavalry officers sometimes got a chance to be extras in films, and Bob, with a false moustache, appeared in an early 1970s television series about Queen Victoria.

Wearing his uniform he was also the model for a Wilkinson Sword advert, which involved lowering his sword on cue, and wore various uniforms in a photo shoot for a magazine – he thinks it may have been Esquire, but as he was abroad so much he never got to see the results in print.

"When I left the Army I wanted to do a book on the relationship between man and horse in an equestrian environment. Then I got a telephone call asking me if I would be the horse coper for a small expedition to Afghanistan looking for the lost city of Firuzkuh. I said yes, as it sounded a lot better than a desk job.

"This was 1972, the height of the hippy era. I was not a hippy. I got into trouble. With polished shoes, pressed trousers, a smart shirt and dark glasses, I was the epitome of what Afghans regarded as a spy.

"The expedition fell through, but I stayed in Afghanistan. I had always wanted to see buzkashi."

This is a traditional horse game in those parts – from his book's description it sounds like a sort of horse-borne rugby with a carcase for the ball – and he got to talk to the players and watch games.

But it was a comment by a Turkish diplomat as he was watching that set him off on his quest to seek out other horse games.

"Buzkashi is pretty hairy, but he said it was a boys' game, and in Turkey they had a man's game. I asked what it was and he said: 'I don't know, but somewhere in eastern Turnkey in some of the villages they play a game banned by the Sultan in the 19th century for being too dangerous.'

"I asked him what it was called, and he said he had no idea. I thought I had better go to Turkey and find it. And that's how it all started."

His book tells of his adventures and travels seeking out various tribal horse games between 1972 and 1975. Even then it was clear that some traditional games were fading away, a process which has continued.

"The young would much prefer a motorbike and modern society. The horses are definitely dwindling in numbers and the horsemen are getting older. A lot of the skills that required endless patience are dying out, especially in Africa."

His passionate interest is not dimmed. His wife thought it would be lovely to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in Venice.

Instead she found herself with him to seek out various horse games in Mongolia and attending a hunting-with-eagles festival.

And in February he is hoping to travel to Indonesia to track down a game called Pasola.

"It's a bunch of 50 to 60 horsemen and they use sticks to knock their opponents off. It's last man standing."