The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Alex Gerlis, Agent in Berlin opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor – you’ve described it brilliantly – did you research provide you with first hand accounts of this shocking event? With Pearl Harbor I was more concerned to get the details of the day correct,...
Tom Palmer, many congratulations on your new book, Arctic Star. Can you tell us a bit about your characters, Frank, Joseph and Stephen? They’re composite characters, so their stories are made up of the memories of several men who took part in the Arctic Convoys, all...
Writing Arctic Star There are hundreds of children’s books about war. From Boudica’s Britain to Bagram Airbase, all theatres are included. But the majority of children’s war fiction covers the First and Second World Wars and it is deployed by teachers in schools to...
Football and the Nazis Think of the Nazis and sport and it’s usually the 1936 Berlin Olympics which comes to mind, with the Games turned into a sophisticated in propaganda exercise, which the International Olympic Committee and too many participant countries happily...
Suzanne Kelman, what first of all drew you to write about Hedy Lamarr? I've always been captivated by the golden age of Hollywood, and the '30s and '40s are my favourite period in film history. So, it has been fascinating to connect the timeline of World War II with...
Writing history in a post-feminist era, when readers are especially alert to issues of social and racial justice, requires a sensitive approach to modern opinions. Authors today have to accept that many influential academics are highly critical of government authority...
Churchill's Cocktails Winston Churchill has been the inspiration for many gift manufacturers over the years. Book ends, tea towels, mugs and key-rings are just some of the Churchill branded items out there. I'm unconvinced he would have any use for them, and I'm also...
To mark the release of her latest book, Army Girls, historian and author Tessa Dunlop chairs an exclusive panel featuring some of the last surviving female soldiers of the Second World War. In December 1941, for the first time in its history, Britain introduced...
In 1940 Olivia Jordan, then Matthews, drove an ambulance under fire in France, escaped to Britain as the Germans closed in and became Charles de Gaulle’s driver-translator in London. Subsequently she was awarded the Croix de Guerre, though talking of her war work last...
When the Nightingale Sings In 1930s London, by pure chance, Judy Morgan meets Hedwig Kiesler. Judy Morgan has just finished her studies of Physics at Cambridge University. Hedwig Kiesler has just left her beloved home in Austria to escape from her ex-husband. Hedwig...
