Wizard trip inspired by a race and novel

by | May 10, 2023 | Uncategorized

Out of the trip came my book:  The Serpent & the Cross. The great Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles) road race was held twenty four times 1927-1957 with a gap during World War II. The race continues today as an historic classic car event. https://1000miglia.it...

Bond who was he?

by | May 7, 2023 | Uncategorized

Is the character of James Bond 007 based on anybody? Many people have been put forward as models. We can be fairly certain what Ian Fleming felt he looked like because he tells us. In Casino Royale his doomed girlfriend, Vesper Lynd, says to Rene Mathis of the French...

Did Bond make the right choice!

by | Apr 25, 2023 | Uncategorized

‘Thoughts in a DB III.’ In the novel Goldfinger we are told Bond is given the choice of cars ‘from the pool.’ An Aston Martin or a Jaguar 3.4, we are told either of the cars were suitable. Bond opts for the DB III; because it has more gadgets and is ‘battleship grey’...

The Key to Inspiration

by | Apr 21, 2023 | Uncategorized

The Spy stories of Desmond Bagley Lee Child kindly wrote the foreword to my book Alistair MacLean’s War in which he said how he had ‘…loved the patient way MacLean set up a story and sucked me in, slowly with great self confidence.’ So much so he was one of main...

Best of the Rest

by | Apr 14, 2023 | Uncategorized

The 007 continuation novels It was on the 12 August 1964 that Ian Fleming died of a massive haemorrhage at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital. Three days later he was buried in the cemetery of the Parish Church of St. James, Sevenhampton, near Highworth in Wiltshire....

Two of my Best books get a makeover

by | Apr 12, 2023 | Uncategorized

New Editions From the Foam of the Sea my first novel published in 2007 and not available for several years is now out in a new edition published by Amazon with their Kdp service https://kdp.amazon.com . Something I have been meaning to do for a long time and proved to...

Charles Causley War Poet

by | Mar 26, 2023 | Uncategorized

The name Charles Causley may not immediately spring to mind when considering war poets. Yet of his 270poems fifty were set during or around his war service. Even many of the others were imbued with the dark shadow of war. There is no doubt he was haunted by the...

With Sadness

by | Mar 20, 2023 | Uncategorized

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Yet a cover can make a significant difference. Which was the case with my forth book The Battle of Matapan 1941which was published in 2011. The cover was based on the painting of maritime artist Dennis Andrews. Known as...