The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Your book SAS Forged in Hell, tells the story of the part 1 SAS played in the Sicily and Italian campaigns of World War II. Could you start by telling us about the role they carried out under their commander Major Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne in those campaigns, which...
Matt, congratulations on your first novel. Why did you want to write this story? Thank you. There were a number of reasons. Firstly, I had long wanted to write a novel. My writing history has included journalism, poetry and short stories but never a novel. It felt...
Congratulations on the publication of your memoir, Natural Causes. What made you decide that now was the time to write a memoir about your experiences as a wildlife filmmaker and environmental activist? Thankyou Ella. I think my career coincided with a sort of Golden...
Simon, your novel Para Bellum is set during the Gothic Wars and this is we're towards the end of the fourth century, but we're talking the Gothic Wars, specifically 376AD to 382BC. It is the slow but certain disintegration of the Roman Empire. It’s momentous times,...
Alec Marsh, many congrats on the new book. This is your fourth Drabble & Harris thriller. What’s happened to our two heroes since Ghosts of the West? The big development is that Ernest Drabble has got married to Charlotte Moore whom he met in Ghosts of the West....
Adam Sisman, can you first tell us about the genesis of the book, The Secret Life of John le Carré? This shorter work serves as a coda to your full-length biography (although it can be read without being familiar with that work). When did you initially have the idea...
Robert Kershaw, many congratulations on The Hill. Why was Crete so important for the Germans to capture? In hindsight one could argue Crete was not so important to capture as it subsequently tied up two fortress infantry divisions and Luftwaffe and shipping assets for...
Evan Mawdsley, by mid-44 in what state was the Imperial Japanese Navy? In May 1944, the commanders of the American Pacific Fleet thought that it was unlikely that the IJN would sortie from the Philippines to defend the Marianas Islands. This was due to their estimate...
When one looks at the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland under Oliver Cromwell in August 1658, would it have been fanciful to imagine a Republic for the foreseeable future, yet within two years the Stuarts were back on the throne? By August 1658, the...
What was your inspiration for Savage Continent, your book about Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War? Did it grow out of your work on the devastating bombing of Hamburg? That was the seed out of which it grew. Having seen how devastated Hamburg...
