It takes me three or four years to research and write each book and the individual stories stay with you for a long time afterwards.

I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.

The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.

The great help of being in the Army is to understand why are the armies clever in what they describe as emotional intelligence, making soldiers come to terms with the death of comrades by certain rituals.

When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make