Buckle your seatbelt and prepare for take-off. Here is "Fireside" Al Maitland's classic reading of "The Shepherd", by the late Frederick Forsyth.

Mr. Forsyth lived many lives before becoming a best-selling author, including the life of a RAF pilot. He told us what it's like to be thousands of metres in the sky when fog sets in, and how that experience inspired his haunting Christmas story.

When Tony Kent was growing up reading gripping thrillers, including "The Day of the Jackal," he never imagined that one day he would help write Mr. Forsyth's final novel -- and that he'd be on the same book cover as the man he idolized. 

The annual broadcast of "The Shepherd" has become a tradition for the program. And, that is in large part because of the calls and emails we've received from listeners ever since it first aired in 1979.