Many things in Simon Weston’s life are surprising. Few who saw the young soldier in the hours after fire melted his face and body expected him to survive. Would anyone have put money on him thriving, becoming a sought-after public speaker and contented grandfather?

Would anyone have expected him to become good friends with the man who nearly killed him?

In 1991 Weston agreed to meet Carlos Cachon. Their only previous encounter had been brutally brief.

On June 8, 1982 this Argentinian fighter pilot fired a 500-pound bomb into British military transport ship Sir Galahad. The ship was loaded with ammunition and fuel.

Weston and his Welsh Guards comrades were preparing to land on the Falkland Islands. Some were playing cards when the bomb changed, or ended, their lives.

Weston tried to help one of his friends who was on fire. The man kept slipping through his hands. Weston realised they were melting.

Half of his body was burned in the long seconds before he stumbled clear.

He became the painfully disfigured face of the Falklands War.

Years of reconstructive surgery followed: more than 70 operations. Weston changed on the inside too.

Forty-eight Welsh Guards had died in the flames. And Weston befriended their killer.

“The fact that Carlos and myself are very good friends is something of note,” he says, in a south Wales rumble.

“He was doing his job and I was doing mine. He just managed to do his job better than me. He was a target, the same as I was.

“He’s a very kind and compassionate man. He’s got a lot of strengths.”

War and peace are likely to be among the topics discussed in Cumbria next month.

Weston is touring the country in conversation with his friend, broadcaster David Fitzgerald.

Simon Weston – My Life, My Story comes to Workington’s Carnegie Theatre on December 5.

“I’m having a great time,” says Weston. “There’s so much to say, we could fill up three hours. We’ve had standing ovations every night.

“People have all different reasons for coming. Some are ex-service. Some are still serving. Some say I’m the reason they joined the military. I say to them ‘don’t blame me!’ But it’s very flattering.”

He says people are surprised by how funny the conversation often is. Perhaps they shouldn’t be.

“Service people have a dark and macabre sense of humour. Sometimes we pillory people, wrongly, for using a dark sense of humour. It’s a release.

“Everybody has a sick sense of humour. They just don’t realise. That can be nurses. The things they deal with – horrendous things. Humour is one of the ways to deal with that.”

Weston was on the receiving end of this a couple of months after being injured.

“My ears got burned off in the fire. In hospital I woke up one day and the nurses had stuck these plastic Mr Spock ears on me. That’s dark and macabre. Some people might think it’s sick. To me, that is funny!”

He adds: “We talk about some of the dark times. You can’t say ‘my life, my story’, without saying something about the things that have happened. It’s warts and all.”

Weston stresses that his life and his story are about more than what happened to him in the South Atlantic when he was just 20. He has spent 33 years with his remodelled face and feelings.

“I talk about my life. The war just happens to be a part of it. That was a few weeks. That was a split second.

“My life is so much more than getting blown up. I’ve built a life for myself.”

This did not happen easily. Few people have survived so much pain, in body or in mind.

Weston has said his first real low point was being wheeled down a hospital corridor past his mother, who did not recognise her newly disfigured son.

After three years of heavy drinking and depression, becoming involved with his old regiment proved a turning point.

Weston’s charitable work earned him an OBE. He has been the subject of five BBC documentaries and is the author of several best-selling books.

He is a public speaker, a businessman, an inspiration.

In a poll last year he was voted Britain’s Most Heroic Figure. “It’s a real honour and I’m very proud of it,” he says. “But I still have to queue in the fish and chip shop. I still buy my own beer!”

He says life is exciting and fun with new opportunities arriving every day.

“That’s the joy of life. We all go through life and we grow and get older and learn about ourselves. Learn to be content.

“It’s possibly more important to be content than almost anything else. I’m just lucky enough to be here. I work on the principle that every time I’m feeling a bit down in the mouth I think ‘there’s 48 men on my ship who would love to have my problems.’”

Having befriended a former enemy, Weston is also reconciled with the place where he almost died. He has been back to the Falklands several times.

“It’s a beautiful place. If it was closer to the UK I would seriously consider living there.”

Yet another surprise from the man who has spent his second life refusing to be bitter. And if he can forgive, why can’t others?

“I wish people could live more harmoniously,” he says. “Put bygones behind them rather than looking at why we should be separated.

“A lot of people in this world are unhappy with what other people are doing, and they kill them. Look at what Isis are doing.

“I don’t like people feeling they have to stay in a constant state of war. Palestine and Israel. For goodness sake, we need more tolerance in the world.

“You can’t have everything you want. It’s just not possible. If you have everything you need, you might get what you want. That’s a line from a Rolling Stones song. And it’s true.”

Simon Weston – My Life, My Story, Carnegie Theatre, Workington, Saturday, December 5 at 7.30pm (over-14s only). Tickets £18.50/concessions £16.50. Call 01900 602122 or visit www.carnegietheatre.co.uk .