I joined the Army in 1965 and served with the 11th Hussars, which I loved. The regiment was so relaxed - a salute was more like a friendly wave.

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.

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

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

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

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.

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.