The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Iran is a country that is difficult to know, but easy to love. I have never been, despite being desperate to, for various reasons which are difficult to go into, but its history is the main draw for me. To visit the ruins of Persepolis is a dream for now. They were...
The Porphyry War is set in the medieval Mediterranean during the aftermath of the Byzantine Empire’s fall. At its heart are a pair of underappreciated historical figures; two women of shared heritage and surprising influence. Byzantium's. Mara Brankovic was born to a...
211 Squadron had been in Greece for five months before they were effectively destroyed. They came from Egypt before that, one of the first RAF units to be dispatched to the Balkans by the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Middle East Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir...
Peter the Great’s death in 1725 made Russia hold its breath. The greatest will to shape the world’s largest and wealthiest realm – a Tsar’s any decision was his entire Empire’s fate – had been extinguished, leaving an unimaginable vacuum of power. But the unthinkable...
A Levantine Lament I grew up an immigrant in England; speaking English in an English-speaking world. Mine was an education in uniform singularity. Yet the gift of English kept on giving. It won me places at good English schools, endowed me with a top-notch education...
Saturday 31st July 2021 marks the 51st anniversary of Black Tot Day. The day sailors in the Royal Navy were given their final rum ration or, for those serving aboard, the day the rum died. By the time Black Tot Day occurred, rum had been closely associated with the...
Auroville, 1986 October of 1986 and a man lies dying in a hut at the edge of a canyon. His name is John Anthony Walker. He’s on a mattress on a cement floor, and by his side sits a woman wrapped in a shawl, a yellow cat in her lap, and she cries. Her name is Diane...
I have just published a study of the formative years of Oliver Cromwell’s career, up until the end of the Great Civil War in 1646 when he was established as the leading cavalry commander of the victorious Long Parliament, and as such one of its main agents in the...
Robin Hood and the Disinherited The story of Robin Hood as we know it today is usually set in the reigns of Richard the Lionheart (1189-1199) and King John (1199-1216). This tradition goes back no further than 1521 and the work of John Major, a Scottish theologian,...
January 2018 saw the publication of my book, Pandemic 1918, the Story of the Deadliest Influenza in Human History, an account of the Spanish flu pandemic which killed up to 100 million people worldwide in three successive waves between 1918 and 1920. When Pandemic...
