I just love the days when you come out of the archives with half a dozen excellent descriptions or poignant accounts of personal experiences.

It was only after five years in the army, when I was having to do a very boring job in a very boring place, that I thought: 'Why not try writing a novel?' partly out of youthful arrogance and partly because there had been a long line of writers in my mother's family.

The vital thing for me is to integrate the history from above with the history from below because only in that way can you show the true consequences of the decisions of Hitler or Stalin or whomever on the ordinary civilians caught up in the battle.

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 European dream was to diminish militant nationalism. We would all be happy Europeans together. But we are going to see the old monster of militant nationalism being awoken when people realise how little control their politicians have.

I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.

I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.