Editing Michael Bentine (section)

===Other interests===
In 1968, travelling on the [[British Hovercraft Corporation]] (BHC) [[SR.N6]], ''[[United Kingdom aircraft registration|GH–2012]]'', Bentine took part in the first [[hovercraft]] expedition up the [[River Amazon]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201043.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=1 December 2013 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203013321/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201043.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201078.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=1 December 2013 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203013147/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201078.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In the [[1995 New Year Honours]], Bentine received a [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]] from [[Queen Elizabeth II]] "for services to entertainment".  In 1971, Bentine received the Order of Merit of [[Peru]] following his fund-raising work for the 1970 [[1970 Ancash earthquake|Great Peruvian earthquake]].{{dubious|ODNB has for "his work in organizing relief after Peru's devastating floods in 1970"|date=January 2022}}

Bentine was a crack pistol shot and helped to start the idea of a [[counter-terrorism|counter-terrorist]] wing within 22 [[Special Air Service|SAS]] Regiment.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/iranian_embassy_siege/717047.stm Bentine's advice to counter terrorist units inside the SAS]: article at [[BBC.co.uk]] website.</ref> In doing so, he became the first non-SAS person to fire a gun inside the [[Killing House|close-quarters battle training house]] at [[Hereford]].{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

His interests included [[parapsychology]]. This was as a result of his and his family's extensive research into the paranormal, which resulted in his writing ''The Door Marked Summer'' and ''Doors of the Mind''. He was, for the final years of his life, president of the [[Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena]].

On 14 December 1977, he appeared with [[Arthur C. Clarke]] on [[Patrick Moore]]'s BBC ''[[The Sky at Night]]'' programme. The broadcast was entitled "Suns, Spaceships and Bug-Eyed Monsters" – a light-hearted look at how science fiction had become science fact, as well as how ideas of space travel had become reality through the 20th century. In the opening of the programme, Moore introduces Bentine with Bentine confirming that he was the possessor of a "Reader's Digest Degree". This remark was typical of Bentine's comic approach to most things in life that concealed his knowledge of science. Bentine appeared in a subsequent broadcast on a similar theme with Moore in 1980. Following the death of Arthur C. Clarke, ''[[BBC Sky at Night]]'' magazine released a copy of the 1977 archive programme on the cover of their May 2008 edition.