The Song-Sayer’s Lament is set around the year we would now describe as 540 AD, in Sixth Century Dark Age Britain, and I wanted to mark the passage of time for my characters in a way that might be credible for the period in question. Why? Because, in truth, we have no idea how Britons, in the century after the Romans left our shores, calculated … [Read more...] about Sixth Century Britain – Festivals and Celebrations
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Sixth Century Britain – the Hill Fort Walks: Part One
The Song-Sayer’s Lament is my fifth novel, this one set in Sixth Century Britain and, since it’s always my habit to check out the locations I’ve used as settings, I recently began to walk some of the wild ground over which the story takes place. And, since that story starts in the ancient kingdom of Rhos, I began my journeys at the North Wales … [Read more...] about Sixth Century Britain – the Hill Fort Walks: Part One
Waterloo – Women on the Battlefield and the Lengths They’ll Go To!
It frightens me to think that I first read Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma almost fifty years ago. And, I have to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it very much as a teenager. The adventures of Fabrice del Dongo weren’t particularly exciting, in my eyes, and the author’s depiction of the Battle of Waterloo seemed almost farcical. But, of course, back … [Read more...] about Waterloo – Women on the Battlefield and the Lengths They’ll Go To!
Zulu War – Zululand, November 2013
In November 2013, we travel the 5,900 miles from London to Durban to visit the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal - which covers the former Kingdom of the Zulus, the British colony of Natal, and part of the Dutch-Boer Republic of the Transvaal. The province's population is 10.26 million (20% of South Africa's total) and the main languages are … [Read more...] about Zulu War – Zululand, November 2013
Spanish Civil War – The War Route of Northern Spain
It’s one of the strange, true but little-known aspects of the Spanish Civil War that, in July 1938, with the conflict still very much in the balance, the fascist General Franco was so sure of winning that he opened up the territory he had conquered in northern Spain for tours of his battlefields. For anybody who wants a more academic account of … [Read more...] about Spanish Civil War – The War Route of Northern Spain