The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Today you can give a Spy School Experience gift voucher to a loved one, or learn to be a spy as part of a fun team-building exercise at work. There are spies in our favourite films and TV programmes and in the books we read. As a nation, we are obsessed with a...
A Family Created by War We are now almost eighty years past the end of the Second World War and novels from the era remain extremely popular. The need to capture and tell stories about the greatest conflict the world has ever seen is more pressing than ever. But why?...
Nature: Challenges & Changes I live in the polders of the Netherlands, within sight of what used to be called the Zuiderzee in the old atlases of my childhood. Outside my window where I write I look onto a large pool of water, formed by the confluence of the...
Napoleon's Birthday Napoleon was born on 15 August, 1769. Under the Gregorian calendar this date was a holiday celebrating the Ascension of the Virgin Mary. The French Revolutionaries introduced a new calendar on 5 October, 1793, backdated to 22 September, 1792, the...
In the years just before the First World War, a boy was growing up in Imperial India. He was obstinate and full of life. Still a toddler, he chatted to the servants in Hindustani. His father nicknamed him Kim, after the spy hero of Rudyard Kipling’s novel, who could...
Black Horsemen: Numidian Light Cavalry I am currently writing the first book in a new series, out in 2025, centred during the time of the Second Punic War, 218 - 201 BC. It is a fascinating period and one that I previously knew little about, other than some of the...
Historical Heroes: Æthelstan Throughout the 700s, the ancient Saxon kingdom of Mercia was the powerhouse in Saxon England. The key to its success, as in the Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Wessex both before and after it, was the longevity of its kings. First, King...
Don’t Mention the War: The Start of Civil War in England The tragedy of the Civil War is explored by the author of a new biography of Charles I. The devastating civil wars of the 17th century tore Great Britain’s three kingdoms apart. They were wars ‘without an...
Across two world wars, women living in occupied countries displayed extraordinary bravery and resilience in running spy networks and gaining intelligence for the Allies, often at great personal risk. To date their stories have largely been missing from the wider...
US Assassinations: The Security Failures The news that the Secret Service is under investigation by the Dept. of Homeland Security for lapses in security before, during and after the attempt on former President Trump’s life should not necessarily come as a surprise to...
