The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Sunlight filtered through the woodland as the first of the SAS captives - troopers Billy Young, Joe Walker, Pat Barker and Sergeant Thomas Varey - were lined up by armed German guards. Driven in army trucks from Paris, where they'd been held at Gestapo's HQ, there...
Staring down the barrel of the 9mm pistol, Serge Vaculik felt his innards turn to ice. He had to hope the Gestapo officer was bluffing, although it didn’t look that way. There was spittle at the corners of his mouth, like a rabid dog. SS Hauptsturmführer Richard...
More than 150 miles behind enemy lines, the SAS raiders slipped noiselessly into the trees. Serge “Frenchy” Vaculik, Thomas “Ginger” Jones and Paddy Barker formed one party. They picked their way through the forest towards where they knew the German ammunition dump...
Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon Articles Click on the links below to read the full article [dpdfg_filtergrid custom_query="advanced" multiple_cpt="post,short_stories" use_taxonomy_terms="on"...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? Each book has had a different genesis, although they overlap. The one about the Battle of Monte Cassino, was prompted by a book I was helping on as a freelance editor, called War of Nerves (by Ben...
As the world around us reels from one crisis to another, it is worth pausing occasionally to remind ourselves that things could always be worse. Seventy-five years ago, the world was emerging from a catastrophe that makes our own troubles look trivial. We still live...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? The Second World War was such a dramatic, traumatic event – but what interests me just as much is what happened next. How did we react to that massive trauma? How did it change society? How do we remember...
What first attracted you to the period you work in? I came to it after quite a long ramble through other periods, beginning with a childhood fascination with Ancient Rome (I loved the helmets), followed by Medieval Europe (knights in armour, castles, cathedrals), the...
June 2017 You are primarily a Russian historian and in 2016 published your book ‘The Romanovs’, the story of twenty tsars and tsarinas who were the most successful dynasty of modern times. Why did you write ‘Jerusalem: The Biography’ when all your other work is on...
How did your experience as a war correspondent influence your work as a historian? A lot. It’s been a real help. It has been a great way to see the scene on the ground. The armies moving and empires falling. The espionage that comes with a sort of breakup of power....
