THE NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE landscape is quiet now—the fields of Stallingborough stretch calmly toward the Humber, as its lanes wind sedately through the village. It is hard to imagine that this peaceful parish once gave rise to a woman whose unflinching courage challenged the very foundations of Tudor power. Anne Askew, born not far from these …
IN MY PREVIOUS post, 'History's Long Shadow on the Land,' I revealed my passion for historical fiction — especially that which covers the period from 1485 to 1714. Of all the chapters in England’s past, none grip my imagination quite like the Tudor and Stuart centuries. It was a time when England was reborn through …
A Window on the Past I HAVE REVEALED in previous posts my love of historical fiction―especially that set in the Tudor and Stewart period (1485-1714). When written with authority and grounded in solid research, historical fiction can act as a richly textured window onto the past by animating facts with lived experience. While it does …
I AM A 50s child. My formative years were the 1960s and 70s ― for which I am extremely grateful. Now, at sixty-seven years of age I think I've earned the right to reminisce a little. Indeed, with more life behind me than ahead, my personal narrative becomes ever clearer; memories more precious. Memories become …
Discovering Küehne + Nagel’s Dark WWII Past WHEN I worked for the shipping and transport giant Küehne + Nagel, I was pleased to be a small part of the global logistics heavyweight. It was a company built on precision, reliability, and efficiency. Containers, tilt trailers, freight rates and manifests: this was the language of our …
Jeremy Brett and the Price of Being Holmes WHEN WRITING my two previous posts — 'The Timeless Detective' and 'The Melancholy Moor' — I was prompted to reflect on the actor who, for me, epitomised perfectly the precision and intensity of the Sherlock Holmes character. His was a performance that redefined the role for my …
IN MY PREVIOUS post—'The Timeless Detective'—I declared who, of the innumerable literary characters in English fiction, is my all time favourite. I also explained why. 'Few reading pleasures rival a Holmes mystery. Each feels like a game played in candlelight — a test of wits where the clues are laid before us, daring us to …
I PLACED MY first order with Book Club Associates sometime in 1977. The now defunct mail-order book company ran six specialist clubs at the time, and I'd elected to join their Mystery & Thriller Club. Of the six books that eventually arrived, two remain on my shelf today. Their dust-covers are now sun bleached, with …
I HAVE MADE no secret of the fact that I like playing computer and console games. In July, in my post 'Becoming Arthur Morgan,' I described my experience of playing the Western blockbuster, Red Dead Redemption 2. Arthur Morgan - 'He became a mirror, a guide, and strangely enough, a companion.' More recently, September's 'I …
THERE ARE moments in life when the unconscious seems to reach out ahead of us, sketching symbols of what is yet to unfold. During a particularly stressful period of my life — one that would soon culminate in a nervous breakdown — I created a stave rune charm; one to carry with me in my …
RAVEN MOON 