View From The Lair

There are Riots, and there are Riots

2011-08-13T11:34:00.000+01:00

One hundred years ago next weekend, two innocent men were shot dead by soldiers during rioting in my home town of Llanelli. John John, aged 21, and Leonard Worsell (the latter a Londoner, on a break from his TB sanatorium), had been merely watching the tussle on the main railway line through the town between striking railway workers and their allies on the one hand, and on the other, soldiers of the Worcestershire Regiment commanded by Major Brownlow Stuart. While attempting to escort a train past the strikers, the soldiers were attacked with stones. Stuart evidently panicked, getting a local magistrate to read the Riot Act - the last time this was ever done in Great Britain - before ordering his troops to fire. These tragic events are being commemorated in Llanelli by a three-day long series of events, including a march to the cemetery where the two men are buried; I'll be attending the unveiling of a plaque by John Edwards, the outstanding local historian who has written the definitive history of the riots. The railway shootings remain very much a cause celebre for the left, some of whom look back on the period 1910-14 as something of a golden age of organised socialist militancy.

Obviously, the anniversary has been given even greater relevance by last week's chaotic scenes in English cities. But to call both events 'riots' reveals the problems caused by employing that all-embracing word. The Llanelli 'rioters' were, in most cases, skilled workmen forced into action by nearly intolerable working conditions (such as weeks of 72 hours plus). They were organised, with a strong sense of communal solidarity; many were well educated and genuinely motivated by socialist principles. Contrast that with the scenes in Tottenham, Croydon, Salford etc: forget deep-rooted social causes, this was simply opportunistic criminality by feral pondlife, nothing more, nothing less. But perhaps the example of Llanelli should also give pause to those who called for the army to be sent in, and who no doubt will do so again if and when the next set of similar disturbances take place. Soldiers have guns, and are trained to fire them; the law of averages dictates that some will be more trigger-happy than others; and unfortunately, there is always the risk of a Major Brownlow Stuart and some innocent bystanders being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

***

Today I'm launching a second, and much more regular, blog - Gentlemen and Tarpaulins, which will deal exclusively with my writing and with 17th century naval history. View From the Lair will stay 'live', and I'll post on it from time to time whenever I want to comment on other matters.

Enter the Dragon

2011-07-18T09:16:00.002+01:00

I'm delighted to be able to confirm that The History Press has commissioned my latest non-fiction project, Britannia's Dragon: A Naval History of Wales. This will be the first book ever to focus on the long history of connections between Wales and the Royal Navy, as well as on naval warfare in the era of the independent princes. English seapower was one of the most important factors in ending Welsh independence, and during the 16th and 17th centuries the Welsh developed a formidable reputation as pirates and buccaneers. However, the main focus of the book will be the contribution made by Wales and Welshmen to the development of the Royal Navy from the 17th to the 21st centuries, looking at the careers of Welsh sailors and officers, the nature and success of recruitment in the country, the experiences of Welshmen in naval service, and the activities of warships with strong ties to Wales - such as HMS Glamorgan in the Falklands War and HMS Cardiff in the Gulf War. The Battle of the Nile might not have been such a great victory for Nelson without the input of a Welshman; the Battle of Jutland really might have won or lost World War One in an afternoon were it not for the actions of another Welshman. Without Welsh copper, it is doubtful whether 'Nelson's Navy' would have been as successful as it was; without Welsh coal, the Victorian navy probably could not have imposed the 'Pax Britannica'. The book will also look at the history of Wales's only royal dockyard, Pembroke Dock, and at the ships built there (including many royal yachts); and it will also include a study of the naval shipwrecks of the Welsh coast.

I'm really looking forward to working with the team at the History Press on this. I actually began research on Britannia's Dragon some time before its commissioning was confirmed; indeed, in some senses I began work on it when I was eight and saw HMS Seraph, of 'the man who never was' fame, being broken up at Briton Ferry! As part of the research for it, I'll be visiting all of the county record offices in Wales (Carmarthenshire, Flintshire and Denbighshire already 'ticked off') and making use of all the major repositories in London (again, a very large amount of material already examined). But I also want to call on the collective memories of those in or from Wales who served in or otherwise had experience of the Royal Navy, and will be announcing the means of doing this in due course.

The research and writing for Britannia's Dragon should dovetail neatly with my current writing schedule for the Quinton journals, and also with the entry into service of HMS Dragon, the splendid new Type 45 destroyer which will have strong links with the Principality. Mae'r ddraig yn deffro!

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A Wing and a Bear

2011-07-13T00:00:00.000+01:00

A very jolly evening at Greenwich for the reception opening the first exhibition at the Sammy Ofer wing, the National Maritime Museum's new showpiece extension for the 21st century (with not a little focus on the Olympics, as demonstrated by the equestrian test event marquees littering the park opposite). The wing is named after an Israeli shipping magnate, ex-Royal Navy matelot and generous philanthropist who unfortunately died just a month before the opening that his largesse had made possible. A large audience consumed champagne (plenty), canapes (minimal) and listened to some brief and entertaining speeches, notably from Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Olympics, Sport and Dubious Antipodean Media Moguls, who by his own admission was hugely relieved to be doing something so pleasant and non-controversial for a change. There was also confirmation of the new collective name for the Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory and Queen's House, namely the Royal Museums, Greenwich - a story first broken, albeit with a slightly different form of words, on this blog much earlier in the year.

We then had ample opportunity to explore the new building, and first things first - as a piece of architecture, it's stunning. A brilliant piece of design has created a part-sunken structure that preserves the integrity of the original buildings behind while also making a bold statement of its own, and yours truly was particularly pleased to see that the statue of King William IV, Britain's most avowedly naval monarch, which spent many years in an obscure locked garden, has been given pride of place in the approach to the new entrance. The interior of the new entrance space is light and spacious, and leads into a fascinating introductory exhibition on the centrality of the maritime element to British life that has a significantly greater proportion of naval material than has sometimes been the case in this museum in the last twenty or so years.

As soon as we were able, certain of us made directly for the new Caird Library on the first floor. I have to declare an interest here: I was on the panel of stakeholders which advised on its design. And it has to be said that it has huge plusses, notably a clear separation (aka a glass wall) between groups of chatty amateur genealogists and serious individual researchers, rather more spaces than were available in the old Caird, and above all, having a much greater amount of important archival research material held actually in the building rather than outhoused. Unfortunately, at the moment it has the appearance (and smell) of a brand new hospital ward; it will need some imaginative deployment of pictures on the ample wall space to liven it up and make it feel more homely. Moreover, the functional long tables and plastic chairs bear a distinctly uncomfortable resemblance to some of the less atmospheric classrooms in which I taught, and there are clearly aspects of the internal layout that will have to be fine-tuned - notably the reservation of all the best desks for Caird fellows and research staff of the museum (thereby suggesting implicitly, or perhaps even explicitly, that what the rest of us are doing is far less important), as well as the selection of open-shelf materials. As a very distinguished naval historian remarked with some horror, The Mariner's Mirror (one of the most essential tools for any maritime researcher) isn't on open shelves, while to this observer, it seemed somewhat perverse that the Navy Records Society volumes should fill up all the space to the end of the top shelf of a bookcase, with the rest of the case occupied by other books - despite the fact that, as the library staff must know full well, the society publishes three volumes in every two years, and that additional shelf space will therefore need to be found on this particular bookcase by October of this year at the latest.

But enough of a researcher's gripes, which will doubtless be resolved by patience and good humour on all sides. The focus of the event was meant to be the exhibition 'High Arctic', which is a piece of installation art. I intend to say very little about this, as I am to modern art what King Herod was to mother-and-toddler groups, and I always thought 'installation' was what one did with kitchen units. Suffice it to say that I'm still trying to work out what the word 'Southamptonbreen', on top of one of hundreds of white columns with similarly cryptic slogans and readable only by means of the little ultra-violet torches handed out on entry to the gallery, actually means. (As an ex-teacher, I can only imagine what fun entire legions of little darlings will have in disobeying the injunctions not to point these torches into people's eyes.)

Let's look on the bright side, though; at least the exhibition has provided an excuse for the museum's splendid new shop to stock some adorable toy polar bears.

PS

2011-07-10T12:47:00.000+01:00

Further to my last blog about the misuse and misreporting of naval history, there's something of an awful inevitability about the fact that the very last issue of The News of the World should contain a classic example of the problem. Presenting HMS Liverpool's activities off Libya as the first time the Royal Navy has been in action since the Falklands is unbelievably crass on many levels. It both ignores the many occasions on which the RN has fired in anger or operated in war zones in the last 29 years (anybody remember two Gulf wars, for instance, or the actions of HMS Ocean and Triumph just a few weeks ago?) and sends out the message that the navy doesn't really do a lot, unlike an army which has its actions and casualties making headline news virtually every day - a message which will presumably be swallowed wholesale by large chunks of a red-top readership incapable of believing anything other than what they're told by such completely incompetent journalism. Maybe the NOTW would have done better by employing rather fewer phone-hacking crooks and defence editors who evidently know nothing about defence and hiring some journalists with sufficient brainpower to carry out a rudimentary Google search for what the navy might or might not have been doing for the last 29 years.

Naval Gazing

2011-07-08T16:38:00.000+01:00

First things first. I'm a naval historian, I write naval fiction, I've been a warship-spotter since almost before anoraks were invented. And like many, many others, I think that the government's cuts to the navy are idiotic - although probably unlike many others, I'd put quite a lot of the blame for the navy's woes on several generations of largely mediocre senior officers, determined at all costs to acquire ever more extensive pieces of kit - even if only to spite the RAF, and only in ever decreasing numbers, as with the increasingly farcical aircraft carriers, the Type 45s and the Astute class subs. (These grandiose pretensions and claims to have the most advanced destroyer/submarine/drinks cupboard in the world cause much amusement elsewhere, notably on the other side of the pond.) Some of the admirals in questions might perhaps have made moderately competent middle managers at internationally reputable organisations like, say, News International or Lehman Brothers, but successors of Drake or Nelson? I think not.

That said, some of the 'facts' being pumped out by opponents of the 'Strategic Defence Review' (a title reminiscent of Voltaire's definition of the Holy Roman Empire) are both downright wrong and actually dangerous, because they undermine the very strong and reasoned case that can be made against cuts in the Royal Navy. Sorry to single out just one, @ThinkRoyalNavy on Twitter, but this assertion - Royal Navy's trained numbers dips below 34,000. It's [sic] lowest probably since the Mary Rose Sank - is simply daft. OK, we could probably quibble for several hours about the definition of the word 'trained', but from the 1650s to the 1690s, well over a hundred years after the Mary Rose sank, the active fleet in wartime numbered on average some 25,000 men, only about 3-4,000 in peacetime (the great majority of years), and it would only have gone consistently above 34,000 well into the eighteenth century. Here's another example that appeared in the Twittersphere in the last week - HMS Cornwall & HMS Gloucester both decommissioned today, first time in history of Royal Navy 2 ships decommissioned on same day. And before that, when the Ark Royal left the fleet, we had Sky News and others screaming that never since 1588 had the Royal Navy been without a ship of that name! Well, not unless you conveniently ignore the years 1638 to 1914, I suppose...and as for two ships never being decommissioned on the same day? I haven't undertaken the exercise, but I think I'd be willing to bet good money that any trawl of the Admiralty records for, say, 1919 or 1945-6 would reveal far more than two being decommissioned on very large numbers of days.

So to conclude - yes, let's campaign long and hard against the mindless salami-slicing of the Royal Navy by careerist, here-today-gone-tomorrow, bottom-line-obsessed politicians, but please, please, please, let's not try to do so by deliberately or inadvertently distorting the very proud truths of that navy's history.

2011-07-03T18:14:00.000+01:00

The Lair is a peaceful place, rarely troubled by ruddy-faced explosions of wrath from its occupant. However, that aura of tranquility has been threatened today by Tristram Hunt's bizarre attack on the digitisation of source material. I don't usually come across a piece that seems so utterly and irredeemably crass, and although others - notably Lucy Inglis - have already gone into battle on behalf of common sense and the modern age, I thought I'd join the fray and fire off a passing broadside or two.

To start with, Dr Hunt seems to be taking issue primarily with the Google Books project by extolling the virtues of physically handling manuscripts. Now, books and manuscripts are two entirely different things, as the pupils of the school where I used to teach learned by the time they were about eight. But bearing with Dr Hunt's confused line of argument for a while, I'd concur that few things beat the sheer unpredictable fun of working with and handling original sources - for instance, the countless discoveries I've made among the filthy and chaotic ADM or HCA collections at the National Archives in Kew, or (perhaps most memorably) crawling on hands and knees on the floor of the Dundee City Archives, pulling a fabulously eclectic cornucopia of documents out of an ancient tin trunk. But this, after all, is the twenty-first century. Digitisation has opened up all sorts of possibilities - yes, the short-cuts so derided by Dr Hunt, despite the fact that such short-cuts enable us to discover sources we would probably either have taken far longer to find or would never have found at all. Take the project to digitise the state papers - how can that possibly be a bad thing, as it permits the preservation of the originals, means historians no longer have to rely on incomplete calendars or frequently unreadable microfilms, and above all permits easy access to the sources to those who live further than an easy day's commute from the National Archives at Kew? Moreover, why, exactly, should history be 'a mystery', accessible only to those of us who have been house-trained in using original documents? If the digitisation of sources means that more people become enthusiastic enough to research a topic in detail and write about it without necessarily going through the Inquisition-like process of proving they are worthy of being granted readers' tickets for the British Library, then where, exactly, is the problem?

It seems particularly perverse, then, that this elitist metrocentric claptrap should have been produced by someone who [a] purports to be the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, where presumably the working men's clubs debate nothing else but the problems of provenance with the state papers (domestic) of the Interregnum, and [b] was responsible for inflicting upon the world one of the lowest of all low points in the dumbing down of TV history, a right-on series about the English civil war during which the now-MP held up pictures of key figures as he mentioned them. But presumably there were people in the 1850s and 1860s who opposed the revolutionary new access to historical sources conferred by the openings of the Public Record Office and British Library, and the calendaring of sources by the PRO and Historical Manuscripts Commission. Moreover, Dr Hunt is certainly not the first MP to suggest that access to archives should be confined to an elite: 'the general task of supervising the publication of such of the records as possessed an historic interest [should] be committed to the charge of some persons of taste and erudition, and in all respects qualified for the task', said Williams Wynn, MP for Montgomeryshire...on 23 June 1846. And yes, I found that quotation online and within minutes via an indispensable digital source, the online archive of Hansard. And pace Dr Hunt, I didn't even have time to slurp my frappucino.

The Saga Continues!

2011-06-27T16:53:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted to be able to confirm that Old Street will be publishing the next three 'journals of Matthew Quinton'! The third book, The Blast That Tears The Skies - set against the twin backdrops of the battle of Lowestoft and the great plague of 1665 - will be published next year; I'm currently revising it, when not distracted by Wimbledon or the urge to read yet more of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I'm only just catching up with. The fourth book, The Lion of Midnight, is set early in 1666. Most of the action takes place in Sweden, then at the height of its power as one of the largest and most feared empires in Europe; as previously mentioned in this blog, I had a very enjoyable time in Sweden earlier in the year, carrying out some really productive research in Kalmar and Gothenburg. I've already started writing Lion and will be getting back to it full time after completing the revisions of Blast. The fifth book will centre on the Four Days' Battle of 1666, which as its name implies was by some distance the greatest battle of the entire sailing navy era, while the sixth will culminate in one of the most famous events in British history - the Great Fire of London.

Thanks to Ben Yarde-Buller of Old Street for his faith in the series, and to my agent Peter Buckman for all his hard work in bringing about this outcome. I'm really looking forward to taking the series forward, and to placing Matthew and his friends at the heart of some of the most dramatic events of the seventeenth century!

Lord High Incompetence

2011-06-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

Great news about the Duke of Edinburgh being made Lord High Admiral - I'm looking forward to the imminent restoration of various other aspects of the 17th century navy, such as the Navy Board, generals-at-sea and scurvy. However, coverage of the story reveals just how shockingly ignorant much of our media is about naval history; and if the media can't get it right, is there any wonder why the general public is so woefully navy-blind? (See my last post.) Take, for instance, this apparently risible piece of reportage from the Daily Telegraph, surely the one national paper that ought to be able to get this sort of story right. Entirely honorary and delegated to commissioners after 1628? Tell that to the Duke of York, who commanded fleets in battle as Lord High Admiral in 1665 and 1672, to the various other individuals who held the office prior to 1709, and to King William IV, who held it, as Duke of Clarence, in 1827-8. But let's dig a little deeper. Like so much modern reporting, the Telegraph piece is simply a rehash of the Palace's own press release - a bad rehash, too, as it omits the important qualifying comment about powers being passed to and from the Board. But overall, the basic error lies within the press release, which is where the idiocy about the position becoming 'entirely honorary' originates. So if the serried ranks of flunkies and spin doctors around the royal family can't get it right, what chance does an overworked reporter have, and then what chance, in turn, does poor old Joe Public have?

Dragged kicking and screaming into the Eighteenth Century

2011-06-06T13:58:00.000+01:00

After setting it up a couple of years ago but never quite taking the plunge, I've started using my Twitter account. Hopefully it'll be a good way to interact with readers, and my initial intention is to use it as something of a running commentary on the process of writing - especially as I'm about to get under way properly on the fourth Quinton novel, The Lion of Midnight. But it's clearly an interesting time to be getting more au fait with the twitterverse. While I have absolutely no intention of discussing the nocturnal activities of ageing unshaven nonentities with hyperactive libidos who happen to get paid vast amounts for kicking a ball for 90 minutes on Saturdays, it'll be good to get some first hand knowledge of the pros and cons of something which seems capable of bringing down governments and slaughtering some of the sacred cows of the British legal system!

Meanwhile, it's Seafarers Awareness Week, one of the most important campaigns attempting to counteract the rampant 'sea blindness' in modern Britain, and View from the Lair is happy to do its bit for the cause. Their website carries the results of a survey which suggests that a quarter of children think Captain Jack Sparrow is the country's most famous seaman. I'm probably more relaxed about this than some of my colleagues: the fact that 75% of children presumably named a real seaman, despite the best efforts of the National Curriculum in schools to pretend that the country never had a naval and maritime history, actually strikes me as quite encouraging, especially in the light of the many far more dire surveys of the state of historical knowledge among young people. (Here's a particularly cracking example from a few years ago.) Moreover, the sea has probably never had so much exposure on TV (e.g. the new series of Coast following hard on the heels of Britain's Secret Seas), the National Maritime Museum is the country's 6th most visited museum and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is in the top 15 of most visited historic sites, and if the population really is so 'sea blind', how did Turner's Fighting Temeraire get to be voted the country's favourite painting? I reckon the reality is that the country isn't so much 'sea blind' as 'navy blind'. That's due in part to ignorant politicians - of all persuasions - whose thinking about defence extends no further than having enough soldiers who can be sent out to invade and get killed in assorted deserts; but a lot of it also has to be the fault of the navy itself, thanks to years of complacency, incompetent leadership and utterly crass PR. Come to think of it, those might be themes to return to on Twitter...

Birth Control

2011-04-27T17:18:00.001+01:00

So Barack Obama's released his birth certificate in an attempt to end the ludicrous right-wing claims that he wasn't born in the USA. Well, fine. Whether this actually stops the half-baked 'birther' movement in its tracks remains to be seen - as others are pointing out, this was never really about his birthplace at all, but a pretty ineptly coded and rather nasty example of the sort of just-beneath-the-surface racism so brilliantly satirised in Clybourne Park, which we saw recently in the West End. (In fact, it's a kind of double racism - that directed against the first black President, plus the underlying assumption that Hawaii is some kind of banana republic which must, by definition, be lying repeatedly about the presidential birth certificate. But yes, I confess that my knowledge of Hawaii is derived principally from both the old and new versions of Hawaii Five-O.) Personally, I doubt whether this will end 'birthism', or whatever it's called; the conspiracy theorists who cry out loudest and longest for hard evidence are actually terrified of some turning up, either because it will give the lie to their fantasies or because they'll have to dream up an even more byzantine explanation of why this development doesn't satisfy them. I suspect that even now, pale young men staring at computer screens in bedrooms in West Virginia or wherever are putting together 'proof' that this certificate is some sort of elaborate forgery put together by an unholy alliance of the CIA, the Illuminati and Al Qaeda - just look at the way in which the conspiracy theories about the moon landings, the death of Diana and 9/11 have survived each new piece of 'definitive' evidence contradicting their cases.

My personal favourite was the story circulated after the Falklands War, when Argentina claimed to have badly damaged HMS Invincible, now being torn apart in a Turkish scrapyard. I came across a suggestion just the other day that some Argentinians still believe this: the 'proof' was that all of the press photos and TV footage of Invincible's return to Portsmouth on 17 September 1982 was shot from the starboard side, thus cunningly concealing the hideous damage to her port side. Ah well, don't cry for me, Argentina (to coin a phrase) - as anybody who has actually been to Portsmouth knows, the best viewing positions to watch ships entering and leaving the harbour are all on the Portsmouth side (i.e. the starboard side of incoming ships). Moreover, I was there that day and have photos of her from the port side about an hour after she docked. But no doubt this will be disbelieved by pale young men staring at computer screens in bedrooms in the Chubut Valley...

***

The new Kindle (see my last post) is still proving to be a revelation. Unfortunately, though, it's altering my reading habits, so that rather than sitting down and reading say three chapters of one book, I'm now skipping between two or three books at a time (of which more anon). Worse, I'm actually finding Peter Mandelson's memoirs pretty compelling - so much so that I've now downloaded Tony Blair's memoirs too. This is troubling. In fact, this is very troubling indeed.

Rekindled

2011-04-06T17:35:00.000+01:00

OK, I succumbed.

Having chuntered endlessly about how sceptical I was of e-book readers, and of how they'd never beat the comforting feel of 'real' books, I received a Kindle for my birthday. My weakening can be attributed to several causes, including the realisation that at the current rate of acquiring books, there would probably soon be no room for me in the Lair, let alone anything else; but I'm also working on a tentative idea to write some novellas exclusively for Kindle, and with that in mind it seemed sensible to actually experience it from a consumer's viewpoint.

So am I a convert? Yes, emphatically. The size is infinitely more convenient than most overblown modern paperbacks (I'm one of those recidivists who long for the days when one could fit a book comfortably into a coat pocket). The 'electronic ink' is easy to read, and obviously the ability to store many books on one small device has huge advantages - I won't now have to throw myself out, and I should be able to travel more comfortably from A to B without packing enough books to populate a small rural library. The facility to email my own drafts to the Kindle is likely to prove very useful indeed. Doom-mongers, my erstwhile comrades-in-arms, can predict 'the death of the book' all they like, but as far as I'm concerned, a week of the Kindle has already broadened my reading. For example, I've been vaguely interested for some time in reading Peter Mandelson's memoir, The Third Man, but it's probably not something I would ever have gone out and bought - but having it on the Kindle, taking up no space whatsoever, is ideal. Without searching the books available for Kindle, it would probably have taken me far longer to realise that one of my favourite authors, John Biggins (author of the simply brilliant Sailor of Austria series), had a new book out, namely The Surgeon's Apprentice, which is the first book I'm reading on the device. (Biggins is one of the very few authors who consistently writes books that I wish I'd written myself, and The Surgeon's Apprentice certainly fits that bill - set in the Netherlands in the 17th century and with a first chapter that touches on the assassination of Henri IV of France by Francois Ravaillac, a subject explored in the last chapter of my Blood of Kings, it seems eerily close to home!).

But I can foresee one serious flaw in the logic behind having the Kindle. I'm now likely to want a hard copy of The Surgeon's Apprentice, and the same is probably likely to happen with other tomes in the future. So rather than heralding the death of the real book and an end to space management issues, the Kindle might well lead to this reader, at least, ending up with even more books on his shelves. Maybe it's time for me to move into the shed after all...

A Fitting Legacy

2011-03-16T18:27:00.000Z

I'm putting together quite a substantial blog about History teaching in schools (yes, another one...) but am waiting for an important link to be posted on my alma mater's website. To keep things ticking over in the meantime, I thought I'd comment quickly on my current reading, Buccaneers of the Caribbean by Jon Latimer. This proved to be his last book; he died suddenly in January 2009, aged only 44. He established his reputation with books on the Second World War that made particularly effective use of survivors' accounts, but also wrote a magisterial history of the war of 1812 which was shortlisted for the George Washington Book Prize. To move on from dealing with those themes to write about 17th century maritime history was quite a leap, and Buccaneers of the Caribbean has its errors, but for a non-specialist in the period, Latimer's grasp of the issues and the source material is very impressive indeed. Too many writers of historical books think that they can read the well-trodden published accounts and then churn out what is essentially derivative pap (which, alas, seems too often to garner good reviews and impressive sales...). Not Latimer; his references make it clear that he'd done a great deal of archival work in both Britain and Spain, and he covers a broad range of contexts in a lively but authoritative style. He was clearly an impressive historian and author who could have had a long and successful career. And that's where my regret at his tragically early death becomes personal. I met Jon Latimer several times - he lived near my cousins in West Wales and became very friendly with them. They often socialised together, notably in the amiable surroundings of what must be one of the least pretentious yacht clubs in Britain, and sometimes, if I was in the area, I'd join them. With my own writing career starting to develop, I said to him that he and I ought one day to have a proper conversation to compare methods, problems and experiences. Death put paid to that, but Buccaneers of the Caribbean, published posthumously, is a fine memorial to a man whom I would like to have known much better.

Not a theory you'll hear on Al Jazeera

2011-02-28T14:08:00.000Z

It occurs to me that the pattern of revolution in the Arab World reflects the original colonial powers...

Tunisia - manning of barricades, much frenzied political debate, corrupt ruler fades away into obscurity. Former colonial power = France.

Egypt - flagrant theft of priceless historic artefacts, army and political elite rapidly ejects corrupt ruler. Former colonial power = Britain.

Libya - complete chaos, unstable old ruler makes endless incoherent ranting speeches and refuses to give up. Former colonial power = Italy.

(I wonder if Italian media, bloggers etc have spotted the intriguing parallel between Gaddafi and Berlusconi?)

Crowning Glory?

2011-02-24T17:36:00.000Z

I was in Sweden the other day, carrying out some fieldwork and preliminary research for the fourth Quinton novel - provisionally named The Lion of Midnight and set in the early months of 1666. This took me for the first time to Kalmar, carpeted in picture-postcard snow, where my main objective was a visit to the exhibition displaying relics brought up from the wreck of the great Swedish warship Kronan (= Crown). Designed by the English shipwright Francis Sheldon, and at the time of her loss the most heavily armed ship in the world (and one of the two or three largest), the Kronan turned over and blew up during a battle against the combined Dutch-Danish fleet in 1676. The Baltic waters, free of teredo navalis, have preserved many remarkable artefacts from the ship, from huge bronze cannon in superficially mint condition to tiny rings, coin hordes and such stunning survivals as Sweden's oldest violin. The Kronan was far larger than the much better-known Vasa, and the locals claim that the finds from Kronan are more extensive and important - having seen both, I won't argue with them. In many respects the Kronan materials also outdo those brought up from the Mary Rose, and provide some superb insights into life as a whole during the early modern age, not just into naval warfare.

But therein lies the rub. Vasa and Mary Rose are names known around the world, yet even some very eminent British maritime historians had never heard of Kronan and the exhibition when I mentioned it to them. The exhibition ends with the ambitious future plan to raise the remaining side of the ship, preserved beneath the silt (as the side of Mary Rose was), but I wonder whether such a laudable scheme will ever come to fruition. For one thing, Kalmar is far less accessible than either Stockholm or Portsmouth, an hour's flight from the former (which in my case was a hair-raising switchback, flying through a snowstorm in an ageing turbo-prop plane), and it is in the invidious position of having effectively come second to the Vasa - despite arguably being a more important ship than the latter, and with a wider range of finds, I suspect that the Kronan project will struggle to raise funds simply because the Vasa is already there, an hour away in a highly accessible capital city, and an entirely intact hull rather than just one half of one. However, and with the greatest respect to a project that has clearly worked very hard over a long period of time and has accomplished a vast amount, it must be said that from this writer's perspective, at least, the Kronan team is not doing enough to develop the sort of international profile that would be required if the ambitious plans for her are to get anywhere. For example, when searching via the UK Google site the excellent Kronan website does not feature on the first page of search results for the single word 'Kronan', while using 'ship Kronan' does not bring up a link to the site within the first ten pages of results. This might be partly because the Kronan does not actually have a discrete website of its own, but is a kind of sub-site of the Kalmar Lansmuseum, in which the exhibition is housed. The approximate equivalent would be for the Mary Rose exhibition to be housed in one room of the Isle of Wight's Museum of Island History. Moreover, the Kronan blog is only in Swedish, despite the fact that most Swedes speak, and write, outstandingly good English, and surely an English translation would immediately provide greater 'reach' (if only by ensuring higher rankings in the search engines); as it is, the blog relies on a Google Translate button, which often produces laughable or indecipherable results. This is a great shame; the story of the past, and hopefully the future, of the Kronan deserves to be much better known.

Roses by any other names

2011-02-01T09:42:00.001Z

Word reaches me that the National Maritime Museum is to be 'rebranded' as the 'Royal Museum of Greenwich'. Apparently the NMM name will be retained for the present building, but will be subordinate to the new overall name for all the sites at Greenwich. In one sense this simply echoes the recent creation of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, but there are crucial differences. NMRN gives a unified identity to a number of sites scattered across the country; there is no such rationale at Greenwich, where the sites are all within a 15-minute walk of each other. Above all, though, 'National Museum of the Royal Navy' clearly does exactly what it says on the tin; the title directly reflects the main focus and remit of the institution. No such logic can be detected in the new name at Greenwich. Moreover, that name surely implies - or even makes quite explicit - a downgrading of the 'maritime' focus of the institution; while the NMM name might be retained in theory, at a quite explicitly secondary level, the experience of the NMRN and other institutions surely suggests that the 'headline' corporate branding, and so forth, will reflect the new name. Yet 'the National Maritime Museum' is an internationally known and respected 'brand', while 'the Royal Museum of Greenwich' sounds like nothing more than a glorified repository of a few artefacts of local history. Worse, this rebranding might be interpreted by some as a signal that the 'maritime' element is no longer considered significant - this at a time when 'sea blindness' is rampant in Britain and when the NMM should be leading the fight against such widespread ignorance of the nation's maritime heritage, not effectively ditching both the words 'national' and 'maritime'. (In the year of a royal wedding and a government headed by public school alumni, it is surely also an interesting sign of the times that the word 'royal' is evidently still considered to be far superior to the word 'national'.) No doubt the NMM's management consider its 'royal' rebranding to be quite a coup, and probably a greater potential attraction for the sort of American, Japanese and Chinese tourists who flock unthinkingly to anything 'royal'. Perhaps it will be. Unfortunately, though, it is also yet another lamentable landmark in Britain's relentless retreat from the sea.

(All opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation with which I am associated.)

Kings' Speeches

2011-01-17T20:10:00.000Z

My first visit to the cinema for far too long, taking in an afternoon showing of The King's Speech. I heartily concur with the almost universal praise that's been lavished on this film - subtly written, well acted (especially Colin Firth's brilliant portrayal of George VI) and very moving. An odd thought occurred to me, though, which doesn't seem to have surfaced in any of the major reviews. In many respects, The King's Speech is simply a modern-dress reworking of The Madness of King George, with cars and fascism replacing horses and American independence. Just unpick the basic plot: fundamentally decent king with a powerful sense of duty and a supportive, loving wife defies his dysfunctional family, overcomes a major impediment with the assistance of an unconventional therapist, and 'recovers' in time to forestall a major political crisis. The script suggests that this might not have been an entirely unconscious similarity, notably when Firth's tortured king wonders whether he would be remembered in the same way as his famous ancestor, as Mad King George the Stammerer. A pity that the scriptwriter and director didn't take the golden opportunity presented to them in the scene when George VI looks up at the daunting portraits of some of his illustrious ancestors: why not have an image of George III upon the wall, and above all why not one of Charles I, the other famous royal stammerer (whose fate must surely have strayed into George VI's mind, given what had happened so relatively recently to his cousin Tsar Nicholas II?). After all, Charles, too, had been Duke of York, growing up in the shadow of a charismatic elder brother who suddenly left the scene unexpectedly; and Charles, too, ultimately lost his stammer to make the speech of his life, albeit only when he already knew that the headsman's axe was about to end that life. Otherwise, my only quibble with The King's Speech is to wish it had been made on a bigger budget: effectively leaving out the coronation, and trying to get away with genuine newsreel footage of the real Cosmo Lang crowning the real George VI, simply doesn't work.

Aside from thoroughly enjoying the film, I was struck by the size and nature of the audience around me. The (quite large) cinema was virtually full - for an afternoon screening - and the average age of the audience must have been in the sixties at least. Which begs a question...if 'oldies' are prepared to come out in such droves to watch a story that appeals to them, thereby presumably making a great deal of money for all those involved in The King's Speech, then perhaps film distributors, studios and movie-makers are barking up the wrong tree by churning out more and more mindless thrillers and potty-mouthed 'comedies' directed exclusively at semi-literate teenaged and twentysomething chavs with the attention spans of hyperactive insects.

Inhumanities

2011-01-09T16:47:00.000Z

To my old alma mater, Jesus College, Oxford, for a historians' reunion dinner - or, more accurately, a J R Green Society gaudy, the pioneering Victorian social historian being arguably the greatest exponent of the subject to come out of the college, while the society named after him introduced us both to some of the most distinguished historians of our era and to the delights of drinking claret, port or Madeira. Much angst from the dons, and those alumni who are now teaching at other universities, about the swingeing cuts to humanities teaching budgets in higher education (up to 80% in some cases); one of the reasons for the dinner was to promote the ongoing campaign to maintain funds for the second full-time tutorial fellowship at Jesus. I've just come across an interesting take on this by Alain de Botton. His analysis of the humanities' own responsibility for the perceived assault upon them is perceptive, even if his conclusion - effectively to make university courses glorified continuations of the much-derided PSHE and Citizenship courses that clutter the secondary curriculum - is laughable, as is his unfortunate conflation of 'humanities' and 'culture'. It's certainly true that university history departments, and academic historians in general, have often been content to occupy ivory towers, talking only to each other, writing lengthy and impenetrable tomes for a tiny audience, and not seeking to reach out to the public at large. Those who do write 'popular' history and/or become 'TV historians' are often still looked upon with suspicion (tinged, with suspects, with jealousy), as the barbs directed at one particularly well-known historian at the dinner suggested. If the current financial pressures finally force university teachers to justify what they do to a wider audience, to cull some of the more dubious fringe courses and PhD theses, and to write books with a broader appeal, then perhaps all the current pain will eventually prove to have been worthwhile.

Nevertheless, it seems ironic beyond belief that this apparent assault on the humanities should be conducted by a government led by Messrs Cameron (Oxford, Politics, Philosophy & Economics), Clegg (Cambridge, Social Anthropology) and Osborne (Oxford, Modern History). But then, the ability of politicians to bite the hand that fed them never ceases to amaze: witness the tirade against independent school students by the government's new 'access tsar' Simon Hughes (alumnus of Christ College, Brecon - fees currently between £4070 and £7155 per term - and Selwyn College, Cambridge). The same is true of modern government's apparent inability to think in a joined-up way. So here's a heretical thought: getting more and more students from poorer backgrounds and/or state schools into universities is likely to mean increased demand for the 'newer' institutions, i.e. the ones under most threat from the cutbacks (despite their current bleating, the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Durham etc will essentially be fine), and for humanities or other non-scientific courses at those universities - in part because it's primarily independent schools that are able to provide the specialist teaching in, and thus the potential future students of, the sciences and Mathematics. So we apparently have one arm of government insisting that more and more bodies are poured into courses that another arm of government is scything away - or even into entire universities that might have no future, already an increasingly imminent prospect in Wales. It's enough to drive a man to his decanter, and to be thankful once again to the J R Green Society for having taught him what to do with it.

The Road from Damascus, Part 3: Lost Cities

2010-12-11T21:34:00.000Z

Palmyra, the lost city in the desert.

This was a stunning climax to our visit to Syria, but it was also a rather surreal one: the vast Semiramis Hotel, which must have been completed not long before 9/11 caused the bottom to drop out of Syria's tourist trade, was so devoid of residents that I literally had to wake the barman in order to get a drink. Almost ghostly in its titanic emptiness, the Semiramis is actually an appropriate neighbour for the vast ruins of ancient Palmyra. I won't relate its history - that can be found easily enough, notably at the ubiquitous Wikipedia - but wandering among the columns, the great public spaces, the enormous temple of Bel and the remarkable tower tombs outside the city, caused me to reflect on the fickle processes by which history decides what is or is not 'important' to it. Having visited many of the great monuments of the Nile just six months ago, I'd put Palmyra at least on a par with the great temple of Karnak in terms of sheer spectacle - and arguably, its cultural influence was probably greater than Karnak's, given its position on trade routes that were much more central and important to the ancient world. Palmyra is certainly far more spectacular than Stonehenge or any Roman site in the British Isles. So exactly what process, or set of processes, decreed that Palmyra should be so little known relative to these other sites? Why is ancient Egypt 'sexy', whereas ancient Syria isn't? We can find exactly the same issues in the teaching of history: why are the Tudors taught ad nauseam in our schools, and not the Stuarts - arguably just as sexy (although admittedly women teachers and students are more likely to major on Queen Elizabeth I than Queen Anne), but with political and religious contexts that are claimed to be too 'difficult'?

Ultimately, Palmyra is barely known in Britain simply because our ancestors went to Rome, Greece and Egypt, leaving 'the Levant' chiefly to the French, the Germans and the Italians (whose archaeological teams still overwhelmingly predominate in the area). This unconscious cultural selectivity is still a pervasive and, perhaps, an insidious force in the English-speaking world's perceptions of the wider world today: witness the endless misconceptions about, and deep-rooted fears of, the Islamic world, and the laughably xenophobic reactions to England's failed World Cup bid. And so Syria, tarred with the brush of a 'rogue state' within the 'axis of evil', remains largely unknown to the tourists who flock instead to the Valley of the Kings, the Acropolis and the Coliseum. The barman of the Semiramis can sleep on.

The Road from Damascus, Part 2 - Good Krak

2010-11-29T10:08:00.000Z

The principal reason for our recent visit to Syria was for me to finally achieve my ambition of visiting Krak des Chevaliers, the greatest crusader castle and reputedly the inspiration for the design of Edward I's concentric castles in North Wales. Lawrence of Arabia, another Jesus College alumnus, called it 'perhaps the best preserved and wholly admirable castle in the world', and Krak certainly didn't disappoint. The photos I'd seen had led me to expect a fortress upon a bluff in the middle of a level desert; in fact, it stands on a dizzying hill top, dominating the only route through the mountains from the Syrian heartland to the sea. The scale of the citadel is simply breathtaking, but then, it needed to be huge: in its heyday in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Krak des Chevaliers was the headquarters of some two thousand Knights Hospitaller and their attendant footsoldiers, who needed a literally cavernous living space, the Hall of the Knights (complete with a long row of cosily sociable latrines), vast stables for the four hundred or so horses, and the largest oven I've ever seen in any of the many hundreds of castles that I've visited. But there were delicate touches too, notably the stunning Gothic loggia and the lovely chapel - the latter was converted into a mosque after Krak fell to the Mamluks in 1271, having previously resisted sieges by both Nur ad-Din and Saladin (whose tomb we visited in Damascus).

One of the best or worst things about Krak, depending on one's point of view, is the complete absence of 'elf 'n' safety' (indeed, Syria as a whole is a land where the entire brigade of H&S jobsworths should be sent en masse to suffer a communal nervous breakdown). Vast holes in the ground are completely unfenced; uneven, unlit surfaces abound; the wall walk, with dizzying drops on both sides, has no parapets, so vertigo sufferers should stay well clear of the edges. The castle has apparently banned school parties but seems perfectly content to allow families and adults of varying degrees of responsibility to do what they please. But then, this is small beer in a country where the driving makes Cairo look like a haven of careful motorists and crossing the road is literally a life-and-death experience: maybe this is partly a consequence of the confusion inherent in road signs like the one I spotted near Damascus, 'Make light speed - place full of inhabitants'.

Pictures, from top: the inner curtain wall and moat; left, the Mamluk baths (aka an unfenced hole); right, the Gothic loggia; the chapel/mosque; the Hall of the Knights; the view from the parapets.

The Road from Damascus, Part 1

2010-11-21T11:23:00.000Z

Back in the UK after a fortnight in the Middle East, the highlight of which was a short stay in Syria. We'd gone primarily so I could finally achieve the lifelong ambition of visiting Krak des Chevaliers, the greatest of the Crusader castles (the subject of 'Part 2' in a day or two), but the country as a whole proved to be a real eye-opener on so many levels. The glib but damning designations of the Bush/Blair era - 'rogue state' and so forth - do an injustice to a country that in social and religious terms is remarkably liberal for the region, with mosques and churches of various Christian hues co-existing happily almost side-by-side (just as what are virtually pubs stand just a little way from the souks). The people that we met were uniformly friendly, deeply committed to family life and often possessing decent English - Syria, once part of the French empire, is a classic example of the inexorable decline of French as a global language, with some of the old 'boites postales' surviving alongside Hellenic and Roman ruins as forlorn reminders of lost ages. As for the history and culture...where to begin? The National Museum of Damascus has on display the world's first alphabet, inscribed on a tiny tablet from the coastal city of Ugarit, next to the world's first musical notation. At, say, the British Museum, these would probably have a room to themselves, with spectacular lighting, a vast explanatory display and visitors queueing round the block to see them; yet in Damascus, one almost stumbles upon them in the corner of a room full of other exhibits. There were many other such discoveries in Damascus, in Aleppo and in Palmyra (the subject of 'Part 3').

But some of the most memorable moments were the unscripted ones: the visit to the 'Bagdad Cafe', the idiosyncratic 'service station' on the road from Palmyra to Damascus which resembles a cross between a Bedouin stopover, a lowbrow gift shop and a beer garden (without the beer); and the unscheduled call at our guide's home town of Homs, which enabled us to eat at the splendid Julia Dumna restaurant (on the site of the home of the Syrian wife of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus) before visiting the atmospheric Um al-Zunnar church, aka the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, one of the oldest churches in the world and the repository of what is claimed to be Mary's belt. Such wonderful hidden treasures seem almost to be around virtually every corner in Syria, and it's tragic that a mixture of politics, an overly-bureaucratic visa system (the latter a consequence of the former - Irish citizens get in more easily) and inadequate marketing prevent their getting the tourist trade from the west that they undoubtedly deserve to have.

Having said all that, it was still a bit disconcerting to pass road signs which placed us no more than an hour and a half's drive from the Iraq border...

(Pictures, from top: the least upright of Damascus's many ramshackle houses; left, the interior of the great Umayyad mosque of Damascus; right, the church of the Virgin Mary at Homs; and a crossroads at which a good sense of direction is arguably essential)

Immortal Memories

2010-10-21T21:10:00.000+01:00

I was quite looking forward to celebrating Trafalgar Night in France. This weekend, I was meant to be attending an international colloquium on 17^th century European dockyards in Rochefort (yes, some of us know how to live the high life), and thanks to the oddities of Ryanair’s La Rochelle schedule, I was meant to have flown out on Wednesday for an event beginning on Friday. I’d booked into the hotel converted out of part of the Corderie Royale, the great ropewalk built to service Louis XIV’s warships. The plan was to order rosbif for dinner (what else?) and loudly toast the Immortal Memory, possibly singing ‘Rule Britannia’ as well if sufficient Merlot had slipped down the ways. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, though, the event was cancelled at the last minute because even many of the French delegates couldn’t get there, thanks to petrol shortages and transport strikes stemming from the ongoing protests against President Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age to sixty-two (which, in terms of the average number of hours worked per week, probably translates into a British equivalent of about forty-five).

So here I am at home, contemplating the tragi-comedy of the ‘Strategic Defence and Security Review’ - more on my other blog – and reflecting on last weekend, when I attended the Historical Novels Society conference. This was a really enjoyable and useful event: those who write and read historical fiction are clearly much more fun than many of those who attend academic historical conferences! I also attended a Q&A session with Bernard Cornwell, who gave some valuable insights into how he works as well as convincing me that I should add his latest book, The Fort, to my Christmas list. The only real highlight in my recent reading has been C J Sansom’s fifth Shardlake novel, Heartstone, which culminates in the sinking of the Mary Rose. It’s a good read, but I don’t think it’s Sansom at his best: with the best will in the world, a plot centred on the complexities of 16^th century wardship law faces an uphill battle, and Sansom’s lack of grounding in naval history is apparent in his scenes aboard the doomed ship. The sinking itself feels rushed and almost an afterthought. Even so, it’ll be fascinating to see how the Shardlake novels are adapted for TV; the casting of Kenneth Branagh as the title character raises one’s hopes, and let’s face it, they wouldn’t have to do too much to better the current adaption of The Pillars of the Earth on Channel 4, which seems to contain more ham than all of Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose combined.

Finally, probably the last-ever traditional slipway launch of a British warship took place on 11 October when HMS Duncan took to the water in Glasgow. Having written a biographical essay on the man after which she’s named, I thought I’d provide a link to the film of the ceremony. We shall never see its like again.

Fragile Heritage

2010-09-28T20:54:00.000+01:00

Within the last 24 hours, I came across two stories involving the potential destruction of irreplaceable heritage that have particular and immediate resonance for me. As I've spent the day working on the proofs of Blood of Kings, my new book about the 'Gowrie Conspiracy', it was strange to see the news story about a van demolishing the historic gateway at Scone Palace, which was originally built in c.1580 for William Ruthven, first Earl of Gowrie, and is mentioned several times within the pages I've been checking today. Given the speed at which the van must have been going to cause such damage - and to end up so far beyond the gate - it would probably have been quite entertaining to be a fly on the wall when the driver attempted to explain what had happened to his employer. I'm tempted to try and work some sort of reference to the crash into the proofs, but I doubt if my publisher would thank me... This photo of the gate in happier times was taken during my most recent visit to Scone, in November 2009.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the south, the statue of Admiral Sir Robert Holmes in Yarmouth church on the Isle of Wight is in grave danger from that perennial curse of old buildings, the leaking roof. In some respects, Holmes is almost an 'old friend' - I wrote his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, a photo of the statue features on my website, and he appears as a central character in the second Quinton novel, The Mountain of Gold - so I've written to Yarmouth Town Council to offer my support for the cause. It's unfortunate that this potentially catastrophic situation won't receive as much publicity as the rather more obvious and 'media-friendly' disaster at Scone, and it's a racing certainty that the latter, unlike Yarmouth, will quickly obtain the funds for reconstruction. But I wonder which of the two pieces of our heritage is actually rarer, and intrinsically more worthy of long-term preservation?

Finally, today's post brought a copy of the audio book of Gentleman Captain. The workload means I haven't had time to listen to more than the beginning of Chapter One, but it's been distinctly eerie to hear one's own words being read aloud by someone else! A big thank you to Jonathan Keeble for doing such a wonderful job on bringing my characters and dialogue to life.

The Death of the Pub, Part 2

2010-08-28T14:09:00.000+01:00

Apartheid is alive and well, and can be witnessed on the main street of any town in Britain on a Friday and Saturday night. It is not an apartheid founded on race; it is not even founded on gender. It is the insidious apartheid of age. Walk into any pub in those town centres and count the number of people over forty. Yes, there’ll be some – the ageing macho men trying desperately to relive their youth, hopefully pulling a giggling, paralytic young bimbo in the process, or the mutton-dressed-as-bedroom-fodder in unfeasibly short skirts. But relative to the proportions of the age groups in the population at large, this is Logan’s Run for licensed premises, with a comprehensive cull of those too old to fit in with the herds of inebriated yoof. So forget all the angst about happy hours, aggressive advertising and the other alleged causes of Britain’s binge drinking ‘problem’: the real root cause of dysfunctional drinking among the young is that they no longer drink with the old. Consider what used to happen in industrial towns throughout the country. In the evening, or after the completion of a shift, workers of all ages would spill out into the pubs together. The young learned the mores of drinking, subliminally or more overtly, from an older generation; not temperance by any means (the older men could invariably drink the young under the table), but rather the lost art of how to hold one’s drink. And if one of the younger men overdid it and misbehaved, an informal police force of workmates and/or relatives (often one and the same) was at hand to instil discipline or to get the miscreant home as quietly as possible. Pubs catered for all ages, and even if they were smoky, stinking bastions of misogynism, they also often had a ‘snug’ where older ladies could feel comfortable. Contrast that with the barn-like urban monstrosities favoured by the avaricious corporate pub chains, which usually have no quiet corners and are geared exclusively at herding as many young people as possible through the doors and ‘persuading’ them to consume far more cheap booze than is good for them. (Is anything this side of Parliament more hypocritical than the alcohol industry's 'Drinkaware' website, and their injunctions to 'enjoy Extra Strength Cirrhosis Juice responsibly'? I doubt it.) Conversely, of course, rural or more traditional pubs are often shunned by many young people simply on the grounds that older people go there, so they’re perceived as ‘uncool’, and/or they don’t have vast plasma screens pumping out endless MTV or Sky Sports.

My father used to tell a story of how he and his father would often go out for a drink together; this must have been in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when my dad was in his early twenties. My father would buy the first round- a pint for himself, a pint for his father. Then my grandfather would go up to buy the second round, and would return with a pint for himself, a half for my father. Nothing was ever said; it did not need to be. It was the unspoken understanding of the generations. But the wholesale destruction of British manufacturing industry in the 1980s broke that understanding, thus exacerbating the steadily increasing attitudinal divisions between generations that had been taking place from at least the 1950s onwards. The brewers finished the job by sweeping away the traditional concept of the pub, increasing the strength of alcohol and, in town and city centres at least, focusing almost exclusively on youth (with breathtaking shortsightedness, of course, for they did so at exactly the time that the number of young people relative to the population as a whole was in sharp decline, and the disposable income of the older sections of society was increasing). All of this, I suggest, long preceded the smoking ban and its undoubtedly detrimental effect on the survival prospects for many British pubs, albeit not for the actual customer experience within those that do survive.

Well, I think I've vented my spleen sufficiently on the decline of the pub (pro tem, at any rate!) so in the next post I'll return to more literary matters.

The Death of the Pub, Part 1

2010-08-22T12:01:00.000+01:00

My village ‘local’ has closed. I know this isn’t unique – the frightening extent of pub closures in recent years has been well publicised – but it’s still quite a shock when it’s suddenly ‘your’ pub that’s gone, perhaps for good. There are apparently quite good prospects for it to re-open eventually, but similar reassurances have been given in many other cases where the pubs in question have ultimately remained ‘dark’. It’s also remarkable how many people emerge from the woodwork to bemoan the passing of ‘the heart of the community’ when they were hardly ever seen at the bar...

Now, the causes of pub closures have been well documented – the smoking ban*, the impact of drink-driving laws and over-regulation on country pubs, the cost of drinking out as opposed to imbibing ludicrously cheap supermarket fare in one’s own home, incompetent landlords, the obsession with creating bland and transitory ‘gastropubs’ rather than trying to retain and develop the loyalty of one’s local catchment, avaricious breweries intent on getting a quick profit from selling off pubs for private housing; and so on ad infinitum.

Let’s be honest, though - many pubs were foul, and their passing is simply good riddance. Few can mourn the long-gone Walton Ale Stores in Oxford, where the furniture consisted solely of a few rickety kitchen stools strewn around a tacky floor, or the more recently departed Bricklayers Arms in Fenlake, Bedford, the only pub I’ve ever approached to be confronted by the classic Wild West scenario of a punched body flying out of the door. But for every irredeemably dreadful drinking den, we’ve lost half-a-dozen or more much-loved local boozers, and now my local might be joining them. It’s hardly reassuring in such circumstances to take the long view, and to realise that pubs have always closed down – many of London’s most historic inns were pulled down as the city was redeveloped in the 19^th century; many coaching inns closed when coaches gave way to the railways in the 1840s and 1850s (to be replaced in many instances, of course, by pubs adjacent to stations, which then often closed in their turn in the 1960s after Dr Beeching wielded his axe); and pubs in industrial towns closed in their thousands between the 1920s and 1980s as wave after wave of recession and contraction drove away or impoverished their former customer base.

Arguably, though, there’s another and perhaps more important reason for the current malaise in the British pub, and for the undoubted problem of excessive drinking among the young in particular; and I’ll return to that in a few days’ time.

(* I must be one of the few people in Britain who was in pubs in Scotland, Wales and England on the first day of the smoking ban in each of those countries – and maybe the only person to achieve that unlikely ‘Triple Crown’ entirely by accident, not by design.)

Happy Gowrie Day!

2010-08-05T11:31:00.000+01:00

Today marks the 410th anniversary of the 'Gowrie House affair', when John Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie, and his brother Sandy were killed in mysterious circumstances in the presence of James VI, King of Scots, soon to be James I of England. Depending on which sources you read, the events of the day were either a botched plot by the Ruthvens to assassinate or kidnap the king, or else a successful plot by the king to eliminate the Ruthvens. The mystery was heightened by rumours of witchcraft, royal adultery and homosexual lust; not surprisingly, it attracted the interest of Shakespeare, who used it as one of the inspirations for the plot of Macbeth. In its day, the 'Gowrie Conspiracy' was as famous as the nearly contemporary 'Gunpowder Plot'. 5 August was a national holiday in Scotland from 1601 and in England from 1603. Although the commemoration died out before the end of the 17th century, the 'Gowrie day' service remained part of the liturgy of the Church of England until 1859.

The events of 5 August 1600 form the basis of my next book, Blood of Kings, which will be published by Ian Allan on 1 December and which argues that the 'Gowrie House affair' was actually far more important to the course of British history than the 'Gunpowder plot'. It'll be interesting to see what sort of reaction greets my interpretation of the events; there are still many people who take sides over this issue, especially those who believe passionately that King James was nothing but the callous murderer of two innocent young men.

Slaves to the Untruth

2010-07-27T15:34:00.000+01:00

It's been too long since my last post, mainly due to a combination of the ongoing work on the third Quinton novel and a fantastic holiday on the Nile. I thought I'd return to the blogosphere by talking about the temples at Abu Simbel or sailing aboard a felucca on the Nile at Aswan, or else by analysing my recent reading. Hopefully I'll get round to doing all of that in the near future, when I hope to update this blog more regularly. First, though, a bit of a rant...

I listen to BBC Radio Five Live quite a lot. I like its regular news and sport updates, plus some of its programming; but I detest its morning diet of mind-numbing phone-ins and above all its army of smug, patronising, metrocentric presenters. I thought the final nail in the station's coffin was the departure of the erudite Simon Mayo (on four days a week, at any rate), but not so. Just before midday on Sunday, a group of studio guests were discussing Cameron's visit to the USA and one remarked casually that Gordon Brown had given Obama a present of a pen-holder made from the timber of a slave ship. Cue much laughter from her fellow right-ons, one of whom then repeated the comment. Presumably the fact that this 'statement' was broadcast on national radio now means that there are several thousand more people who believe it than there were before this show went out. I've also seen this statement made in a few blogs, the authors of whom are presumably morons and/or have political agendas, so presumably the lazy Five Live contributors picked it up from such sources and couldn't be bothered to check in more detail in such obscure, inaccessible sources as Wikipedia. Countless other blogs - including ironically many that are anti-Obama - get the story right, so just for the record - the pen-holder was made from the timber of HMS Gannet, which was a late-Victorian gunboat involved in a number of anti-slavery patrols. So far from proving that Gordon Brown was a tactless idiot, the presentation of the pen-holder actually puts the former PM in a good light, and a far better light than the president, who reciprocated with a cheap box set of DVDs.

So to correct my earlier statement, I used to listen to Five Live quite a lot; I think I might have reached that seminal turning point in life called the 'Radio Four moment'. Because let's face it, there's only one word for the statement about the 'slave ship', as broadcast on what used to be a cherished and dependable national institution: and that word is 'lie'.

Still Viewing!

2010-06-14T13:41:00.000+01:00

After much reflection and comments from readers of this blog, I've decided to keep 'View From The Lair' going in tandem with my new blog on the Ian Allan website. This will actually allow a much more sensible division of focus, with purely naval and maritime history posts going on the Ian Allan blog while this one concentrates on my writing and reading of fiction, plus miscellaneous historical and other issues.

I'm still hard at work on the third Quinton novel, The Blast That Tears The Skies, and have been writing the chapters dealing with the battle of Lowestoft on 3 June 1665, one of the largest and most vicious battles in naval history. What with having the Great Plague as the backdrop for the land-based scenes, I think it's true to say that this will be the most 'X-rated' of the Quinton novels, and certainly won't be for the faint-hearted! For light relief, I've been reading The Coronation, Boris Akunin's latest Fandorin novel. Akunin has sold millions of copies in Russia, and it's easy to see why - he combines delightful pastiches of some of the great Russian authors with a profound respect and nostalgia for the Tsarist period. However, Akunin also appeals successfully to western audiences by fully adopting the methodology of the thriller genre, while his hero, the enigmatic Erast Fandorin, is something of a cross between Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Like both of those fictional icons, Fandorin can be rather too self-righteous and indestructible at times, but the beautifully observed descriptions of late nineteenth century Moscow redeem the books and raise them well above huge swathes of current historical fiction.

Hearts of Oak

2010-05-29T11:46:00.000+01:00

Happy Oak Apple day!

29 May 2010 marks the 350th anniversary of the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. I've already referred in this blog to the strange silence about this in official circles and the media, but at least there have been a few mentions of it in the blogosphere - including this suggestion that Oak Apple day should replace St George's day as a public holiday for England - and I recently discovered a website that attempts to raise awareness of the day, partly through suggesting a pub crawl of 'Royal Oaks'... 29 May 1660 was King Charles II's thirtieth birthday and the day chosen for his ceremonial entry into the city of London, having landed at Dover on the twenty-fifth (a scene described in Pepys's diary, which also commemorates its 350th anniversary this year; last week I attended the annual Pepys commemoration service at St Olave's church, where he's buried). The day was marked in the Anglican liturgy until 1859, and warships of the Royal Navy fired gun salutes to mark the occasion until well into the eighteenth century. The first warship to be named Royal Oak was launched in 1664, only to be burned during the Dutch attack on the Medway in 1667; she was the flagship of Sir John Lawson at the battle of Lowestoft in 1665 and thus features in the sections that I'm currently writing for the third Quinton novel, The Blast That Tears the Skies. The most famous Royal Oak was, of course, sunk in Scapa Flow on 14 October 1939 by U-47, which had daringly penetrated the harbour defences.

Finally, beginning with this post 'View from the Lair' will be moving home to be hosted by the website of publishers Ian Allan, who are bringing out my book Blood of Kings and are about to launch their new website; the archive of previous posts will also be transferring across, although they'll also continue to be available at this url. The blog should have much greater exposure on that site, and it might also be possible to do some exciting new things with it.

Long Time No See

2010-05-23T18:50:00.001+01:00

I recently finished the latest Robert Goddard novel, Long Time Coming - a delightful double entendre which reflects both the book's plot and the fact that it appears two years after his previous novel, rather than the usual one. This has undoubtedly benefited Long Time Coming, a fiendishly complex plot (like all of Goddard's best work) which alternates between 1940 and 1976, focusing ultimately on events in the tense, surreal environment of neutral wartime Dublin. Like others, I felt that the previous couple of Goddard novels had been disappointing and bore all the signs of being somewhat contrived and rushed to meet publishers' deadlines, so it's really pleasing to see one of my favourite authors return to form so impressively.

I first came across Goddard's books years ago when I bought Sea Change, set in the eighteenth century. This is actually the least typical work in his canon; most of his novels are set in the present or the near past and refer back to earlier historical periods. I've always been impressed by his formidable erudition, but since I started writing my own novels I've become increasingly appreciative of the tightness of his plotting, the grounding of his characters in their own personal histories (this influenced my construction of the Quinton family in my own books), and above all his mastery of pace. Goddard's books are grounded in 'real time', and one of the secrets of his success is that he allows his characters rather tighter time margins to get from A to B than most authors. This usually works superbly (is it possible to get from central London to Basingstoke and back again in the space of a few hours in an afternoon? Of course it is, although Goddard's world tends not to feature congestion on the M3) but it does mean that every book contains at least one or two chronological implausibilities: to take just one example in Long Time Coming, it's surely highly improbable that someone who's just been released after 36 years in an Irish jail would be able to obtain a temporary British passport in half a day in 1976 or at any other time in British history. But this is a very, very minor quibble. So like all Goddard fans, I now face a dilemma - do I hope that he reverts to one book a year, possibly with a consequent reduction in quality, or hope that the next one will also be a slightly longer time coming?

The House That Time Forgot

2010-05-08T15:20:00.000+01:00

I'd thought to blog about the election result, but everybody else is doing that - suffice to say that perhaps Nick Clegg should remember the fate of the last Liberal-Conservative coalition (1915-22), which divided the party for decades and contributed largely to its decline to the dire position when it had only six MPs, from which it has spent the last 30 years slowly recovering. I also wondered about commenting on some of my most recent reading, but this would probably have been far too vitriolic for such a genteel, sheltered place as the Internet; suffice to say that there is a book which shall remain nameless, by an author with a respectable pedigree in both fiction and non-fiction, which aims to provide a broad overview of the history of a well-known family but manages to include a whole string of howlers that would disgrace even the densest schoolboy I ever taught (who's probably a merchant banker or an MP now...) Here's the classic, referring to the events of the second Anglo-Dutch war: 'The Dutch sailed up the Medway and towed away the Royal Charles. Recovery the next year, when Monk and Rupert fought a battle in the Downs and drove the Dutch fleet back to its own ports, scarcely assuaged the bitterness of the previous year's humiliation.' Anybody who can invent a naval battle in 1668, the year after peace had been signed, and any publisher that permits such crassness to reach the reading public, deserves to be named and shamed, but this blog would never stoop (quite) so low.

Instead, I thought I'd post some pictures of Derwydd, from what was evidently a specially commissioned photograph album of 1947 that I acquired on Ebay a few years ago. One of the oldest properties in Wales, it was transferred through heiresses for centuries, always staying with descendants of the earliest known owner, until finally sold in 1998 when the contents were auctioned off. In the 18th century it was a property of the Stepneys, an intriguing and colourful family whose history I'm writing, and passed in the 19th century to their descendants the Gulstons, who believed themselves the rightful heirs to the Ruthvens, Earls of Gowrie, subjects of my forthcoming book Blood of Kings. The bed dates from c.1500 and belonged to Sir Rhys Ap Thomas (1448-1525), one of Henry VII's most loyal Welsh allies and who effectively ruled South Wales on behalf of that monarch and his son. I'll aim to post more pictures of Derwydd in the near future.

Wolf at the Door

2010-04-27T15:43:00.000+01:00

Both blogging and reading have taken a back seat recently, mainly because I've been doing a lot of work on the third novel in the 'Journals of Matthew Quinton', namely The Blast That Tears the Skies. However, I'm finally reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall; long overdue, I know, but most of the things on the 'to read' list are now long overdue! It's a stunning piece of writing and a deceptively easy read. I've read very few Booker winners/nominees over the years, mainly because I suppose I have a deep-seated aversion to the overhyped, but this is clearly a thoroughly well deserved winner of the prize (and it's good to see an out-and-out historical novel gaining such recognition!). Several critics have commented on her success in recreating an entire world, and I'd concur with that. In that sense, it resembles Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels; the attention to detail is so breathtaking that one actually overlooks it, simply because you're drawn totally and seamlessly into this alternative world that the writer has created. Mantel's grasp of some very complex history is pretty much flawless, too, although her Thomas Cromwell (and to a lesser extent her Wolsey) is probably rather too sympathetic when compared with the original. For me, one of the most interesting aspects of Mantel's technique is the decision she took about language, namely to make it unashamedly 'modern'. This works well, although purists might quibble about some aspects of it, notably the comparative lack of deference in the way that those of lower rank address those of higher status. I'd also have preferred religion to be a little more central to the motivation and thought processes of her characters, as it undoubtedly was to the real people whom she is recreating, but that would probably have been the kiss of death in terms of winning the Booker Prize! I'm still a way off finishing Wolf Hall, but when I eventually do, I'll have a real dilemma in terms of the rest of the vast 'to read' list: what on earth can I pick up that will be able to follow a book this good?

Painting History

2010-04-11T15:14:00.000+01:00

I recently went to the National Gallery's Delaroche exhibition, centred on his famous painting of the execution of Lady Jane Grey. This proved to be particularly thought-provoking on several levels. It said much about the perception of art in different times: Delaroche's almost photographic realism became deeply unfashionable in the post-Impressionist era, and is still probably frowned upon in the more right-on metropolitan galleries. The exhibition also suggests that the educated and artistic classes of the nineteenth century had a rather wider interest in, and deeper knowledge of, the history of neighbouring countries than is often the case today. It's difficult to imagine many French artists today drawing inspiration from British history, and the less said about British ignorance of European history, the better (witness the recent faux-pas by a Prime Minister with a PhD in History, namely muddling the Bourbons and Habsburgs as the subjects of the famous quip about having learned nothing and forgotten nothing.)

Above all, though, the Delaroche exhibition provides some fascinating insights into the way in which 'history' is all about image creation, and the images produced in different genres have a way of feeding off each other. Thus Delaroche's equally famous painting of 'the Princes in the Tower' was based upon Shakespeare's account of their deaths in 'Richard III'; in turn, Delaroche inspired a host of imitators, influenced portrayals of the scene on film, and still shapes many people's mental image of the fate of the princes. Many of my earliest impressions of historical events were shaped, consciously or unconsciously, by John Kenney's illustrations of L Du Garde Peach's Ladybird books, and I belong to the generation that can't think of Elizabeth I without thinking of Glenda Jackson, or of Henry VIII without thinking of Keith Michell. (Pity the younger generations whose mental images of that monarch have been shaped by the mind-numbing The Tudors...) Having started out as an academic historian, I'm particularly conscious of the potential dangers of such image-making when writing fiction. For example, my portrayal of Charles II in Gentleman Captain is based on my reading of all the major biographies of the king, of many of his own notes and letters, and of the contemporary accounts of many of those who knew him - but I also know that somewhere at the back of my mind are the countless screen portrayals by the likes of George Sanders, James Villiers (in The First Churchills), Sam Neill (in Restoration) and Rupert Everett (but certainly not the risible portrayal of the king by John Malkovich in The Libertine). So Delaroche is part of a long and respectable tradition of shaping our perception of historical figures through different forms of art and media; but he also provides proof of the insidious power of such image making. After all, who can look at his 'Lady Jane Grey' without implicitly making the connections 'Jane = Innocent', 'Protestant = Good', 'Mary Tudor = Catholic = Bad'?

When in Rome...

2010-03-27T19:22:00.000Z

I'm currently reading Imprimatur, the runaway international bestseller by the Italian journalists Monaldi and Sorti. I'm interested in this book on two main levels: it's set in the 1680s, a period that's been a second home for many years now; and the differences in style and content between this and the genre that I inhabit are proving to be quite fascinating. The book has become famous, even notorious, because of being banned in Italy (allegedly because of pressure from the Vatican), essentially because it claims that Pope Innocent XI secretly funded the 'Glorious Revolution' that brought William of Orange to power in Britain. Now, Britain might have the most absurd and draconian libel laws in any democracy, but it's hard to imagine any work that denigrates a historical figure from 300 years ago receiving a nationwide ban; it hardly reflects well on the maturity of free expression and political discourse in Italy, but then, neither does Silvio Berlusconi. (On the other hand, I should think that Imprimatur makes just as uncomfortable reading in the average Orange Lodge as it does at the Vatican, especially when allied to the various theories suggesting that 'King Billy' was gay.) To historians of the period, the story of Innocent's financial support for William is old hat, and in the political context of the 1680s it made perfect sense for the Pope to assist those who opposed his arch-enemy, Louis XIV of France; only those who have no understanding of the realities of history would find the story outlined in Imprimatur offensive.

As it is, Monaldi and Sorti are much stronger on papal than on Anglo-Dutch history; for example, William was certainly not the rival Protestant candidate for the British thrones in 1683. But their setting - a Rome tavern during a time of plague, with the Turks besieging the walls of Vienna - is memorably claustrophobic, and their characters are well drawn. (I like the fact that the English character is named 'Edward di Bedfordi', surely a nod towards the large Italian community in modern Bedford.) On the other hand, their willingness to include long passages of detailed historical description, to digress at length and to rely on many long uninterrupted monologues are all tendencies that would have agents, editors, publishers and (no doubt) readers castigating a humble scribbler of Restoration naval fiction, and probably rightly so. Or does it mean that Anglo-Saxon editors, publishers etc have a very low opinion of the intellects and concentration spans of Anglo-Saxon readers? But at least those Anglo-Saxon readers have the opportunity to read different styles of novels set in the seventeenth century and then make up their own minds, unlike their counterparts in Italy!

Lies, Damned Lies, and Dodgy History

2010-03-16T21:26:00.000Z

Here comes a general election, and with it the inevitability that for the next few weeks we'll be subjected to dubious historical allusions and comparisons galore. The last few days have seen much talk of coalition governments, so journalists in search of a headline have decided arbitrarily to apply the term 'Kingmaker' to Nick Clegg - despite the fact that the word has overwhelmingly negative connotations, even if one leaves aside the wholly unlikely concept of 'Clegg the Kingmaker'. (The much-maligned BBC provided an exemplary explanation of the historical origins of this term, allowing a knowledgeable historian to do most of the talking; would that many other employees of the BBC and other media did likewise.) There's also been some discussion of previous precedents for hung parliaments and/or coalition governments. One allegedly eminent political writer who shall remain nameless (oh, all right, it was Fraser Nelson of the Guardian) got horribly tangled between the two, assuming that the number of years of minority government in the 20th century were identical to those of coalition government; wrong, as coalitions provided the government for a grand total of twenty years (1916-22 and 1931-45). We're already seeing the frenzied gloom-and-doom merchants hold forth on the evils of minority governments and coalitions, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the world's democracies get on perfectly well under such conditions. (Think of such notoriously unstable tin-pot third world backwaters as Germany, the Republic of Ireland and...umm...oh yes, Wales and Scotland...) Coming soon, presumably, will be the earnest discussions of the constitutional role the queen would have in the event of a hung parliament, all of which will probably ignore the fact that during her reign she has been far less involved in, and certainly has less room for manoeuvre in, deciding on the government of the UK in such an event than do the likes of the Belgian monarch or the average Governor-General of Canada or Australia.

So stand by for a flood tide of ill informed, lazy or simply wrong history, trotted out to back up particular agendas or to add impressive-looking 'facts' to relentlessly superficial reporting. One final example: the 'poshness' of the Camerons has been an easy target, and it's almost become a mantra to refer to 'Sam' as 'a descendant of Charles II' and 'Dave' as 'a descendant of William IV'. OK, fair comment up to a point, but let's have a little perspective here - thanks to his remarkably active nocturnal proclivities, there are thousands of descendants of Charles II (Rupert Everett, for one, which might be why he provided one of the best-ever screen portrayals of the king*), while Gordon Brown is probably descended from King Robert the Bruce - most Scots are, just as most English people are descended from King William the Conqueror. Royal descent isn't particularly special, it's just a matter of how far back in your family tree it happens to be. Moreover, there seems to be much less focus on the fact that the PM is perfectly entitled to call himself Dr Brown, given his doctorate in History; but then, perhaps the fact that he was educated to such a high level doesn't fit comfortably with projecting the image of a modest man of the people, in contrast to 'David-Old-Etonian-Descendant-of-William IV-Cameron'? Just a thought.

(* Everett is surely unique in having played both Charles I and Charles II on screen - respectively one of the shortest and one of the tallest kings in British history, not to mention bearing virtually no facial resemblance to each other.)

Archive Wars

2010-03-14T18:08:00.000Z

I’ve been disappointed with the comparative lack of activity on the Action 4 Archives website in recent months. Essentially, this site was set up in response to the threatened (and now implemented) cutbacks at the National Archives, Kew, which mean that the building now closes on Mondays and has also culled significant numbers of specialist staff. However, this is merely the tip of a very large iceberg. Across the UK, archive services are under threat due to a dangerous combination of funding cutbacks (thank you once again, investment bankers and inept politicians alike) and insensitive or simply incompetent management. Unfortunately, archive services are often looked on as an obvious target for cutbacks so that funding to so-called front line services can be preserved, and in many cases they have responded by trying to be as ‘populist’ as possible. Many local record offices have cut their hours and/or staff; and very often they, like the National Archives, have jumped on the ‘Who Do You Think You Never Were in a Million Years’ genealogy bandwagon, subordinating the interests of serious researchers to those of gaggles of talkative pensioners intent on tracking down their great-great-grandparents as loudly as possible. Researchers are often timid creatures, and do not like to make a fuss. However, the evidence of what happened at the National Maritime Museum (see archived blogs, Oct. 2008 onwards) suggests that organising and making as great a fuss as possible can achieve results. Museum management originally proposed to close all research facilities completely for over six months to ensure that their new wing was completed in time for the Olympics, when the equestrian competition will be held in front of it. A ferocious campaign of protest followed, much of it originally generated from the ‘grass roots’ through the various online maritime history forums (notably this one). Even the normally torpid learned societies weighed in, and with political, media and legal channels all being explored, the museum made a number of major concessions (albeit not enough to satisfy all of those who study there). There has been a similar success story at the National Library of Wales; partly as a result of public pressure, the library has reversed the Saturday closures that it introduced last year.

However, a narrow focus on opening hours and staffing runs the risk of overlooking the many other aspects of current archive practice that actively work against the interests of serious researchers. Leaving aside the manifold ‘quirks’ (to be charitable) of the British Library and the idiocies imposed at archives nationwide in the name of ‘Health and Safety’*, these include the widely differing policies on digital photography, still prohibited in too many institutions but which, if permitted, saves researchers significant amounts of time and effort and also saves staff time they would otherwise spend on reprographics; the huge variations in policies on reader admissions (what is the point of many record offices having their own pedantic reader ticket requirements when the CARN scheme exists?); and above all, the distinctly dubious practice of some archives claiming that they, rather than the heirs-at-law of the original creators, hold the copyright on original materials deposited with them, thereby enabling them to levy exorbitant charges for reproduction. Don’t get me wrong, most archivists, librarians and other staff in this sector do an outstanding job, despite being neglected by their employers and taken for granted by many of those who use their services. Above all, archive services are not optional extras, to be bolted on or cut back depending on political considerations and financial pressures. It’s a hoary old cliché, but they are literally the repositories of the nation’s collective memory, and we should treasure them.

(* For example, the other day I was deeply reassured to find a guide on how to wash my hands prominently displayed in the gents’ loos of the National Library of Scotland, as the hands which I would shortly be using to handle irreplaceable 17th century manuscripts were evidently covered in bullshit and I hadn’t been taught the skill of washing them at the age of two or thereabouts.)

History Matters?

2010-03-10T11:53:00.000Z

I see that David Dimbleby has joined the debate about the inadequate provision of History in schools, saying that programmes like his current BBC series on the Seven Ages of Britain help to fill the huge gaps in provision at secondary level. He's undoubtedly right, but only partly so. I recently blogged on the qualities of much of the history seen on TV, and 'Seven Ages' is undoubtedly better than much of what's out there; but it's still painfully superficial when compared to roughly equivalent series of the past (say, Kenneth Clarke's 'Civilisation') and still panders to the 'soundbite' school of history, and, indeed, of education in general, epitomised by the very same BBC's fatuous attempt to convince 16 year olds that GCSE revision can somehow be made 'bitesized'.

Now, many others far more august than myself (or David Dimbleby, come to that) have commented on the appalling neglect of History in British schools, and not so long ago the Historical Association ran a campaign called 'History Matters' which seemed to consist primarily of the distribution of nice little white badges bearing that slogan. It certainly used to be the case that only two countries in Europe did not retain History as a compulsory subject until the age of 16, but even Albania finally went down a more enlightened path, leaving the UK in splendid isolation (and I wonder how many of our current History students would be able to identify the historical origins of that term?). On the other hand, I know many History teachers who offer up thanks on a daily basis to the great god of option systems that they don't have to put up with the hordes of sullen refuseniks who are dragooned into the subjects that are compulsory. The issue is really more to do with the narrowness of the choice available to students. Take, for example, the new GCSEs that began to be taught last September. Looking at the three monolithic English exam boards alone - institutions which prove beyond doubt that Stalinism is alive and well and living in London, Cambridge and Manchester (indeed, the AQA headquarters used to be known as 'the Manchester Lubyanka') - we see that Edexcel offers one course focusing exclusively on 20th century history and another founded on the venerable Schools History Project, secondary education's equivalent of an ageing hippy, with its familiar old studies of the American West, Medicine Through Time and Britain 1815-51 (familiar because I was teaching them to the intellectual cream of north Cornwall thirty years ago). AQA, one of whose previous incarnations provided me with useful extra income for a decade, also offers a Schools History project track, albeit with the addition of a blatantly populist option on Media Through Time, but its other track is again exclusively 20th century. To be fair, OCR offers Ancient History - thanks only to an outcry against its proposed abolition - but then has nothing before the nineteenth century on its SHP track, while the other is, yet again, exclusively 20th century; and Edexcel offers a fascinating-sounding module on the history of warfare within its SHP option, which provides a last beleaguered refuge for medieval and 17th century topics at GCSE level. But otherwise, the 'Dark Ages', the Middle Ages, the Early Tudor period and the 17th and 18th centuries, not to mention the history of most of the world, need not have bothered taking place, for all the attention they currently receive in English classrooms. (And I do stress 'English' - Wales and Scotland have a broader outlook, but only just.)

The exam boards will tell you that they are driven by market demands and by what teachers are qualified to teach (or prepared to teach in competition with 'sexier'/easier options), but of course there is a vicious circle here: History teachers who have come out of this very system are often tempted to stay within their 'comfort zones' at university and thus have very little expertise outside the well-trodden paths of Hitler, Stalin, and maybe the odd tentative nod towards other periods. It's similar to the current alarm bells being rung in mathematical circles, i.e. that the Maths taught in secondary schools is now so chronically superficial that the next generation of Maths teachers will actually be incapable of teaching the more complex aspects of the subject, leading to even more dumbing down in the generations that succeed them in turn. Such, I'm afraid, is the logical conclusion of the relentless drive to make all subjects, History included, as 'accessible' (that legendary euphemism for 'easy') as possible so that politicians can achieve their insane holy grail of getting 50% of the population into universities. Ironically, salvation might come thanks to the recession; the numbers of men applying to be primary school teachers are already rocketing, and perhaps good History graduates are already realising that the worst abuse a Year 11 bottom set can inflict on them on a Friday afternoon is as nothing to the public opprobrium they'd receive if they became bankers.

Restoration Blues?

2010-03-07T10:23:00.000Z

This year marks the 350th anniversary of both Samuel Pepys's diary and the restoration of the monarchy. While there has been a reasonable amount of attention on the former (including a BBC4 documentary and Benjamin Till's intriguing attempt to create a forty-part motet based on the diary), there's been almost no mention of the latter. Now, it might well be the case that the royal family's determination to hit the self-destruct button at every conceivable opportunity during the last thirty years or so means that many people might be reluctant to celebrate the event that returned them to the British Isles, but that hardly seems to be good reason for simply ignoring what was undoubtedly one of the most important turning points in British history. Nevertheless, a quick glance at the websites of all of the major art galleries in London suggests that none of them are marking the Restoration in any way, despite its fundamental place in the history of British art, and there is a similar silence from the great museums. Sadly, the same is also true of the National Theatre, despite the Restoration's even more seminal role in the development of that medium - and, indeed, of the monarchy itself, whose own website currently contains no reference to the anniversary. The website of the historic royal palaces is still majoring on last year's Henry VIII anniversary, perhaps a sign that the Tudors are now seen as being much sexier than the far more interesting Stuarts - thanks presumably to the evils of the A-level History option choices, to films and TV programmes featuring unfeasibly thin Tudor characters enjoying equally unfeasible amounts of frenetic sex, and to the miserable failure of those of us working on the seventeenth century to provide a celeb-historian to equal David Starkey.

However, my 'branch' of naval history is bucking the trend to some extent. The last eighteen months or so have seen the publication of Richard Endsor's outstanding study of The Restoration Warship and my own book on Pepys's Navy, together with a new edition of Frank Fox's seminal study of The Four Days Battle of 1666. Last week saw the publication of a new edition of Pepys's only published work, the Memoires of the Royal Navy, with a new introduction by yours truly. On 17 April the Naval Dockyards Society's annual conference at the National Maritime Museum focuses on the seventeenth century navy, and on the Restoration period in particular, under the slightly tongue-in-cheek title Pepys and Chips: Dockyards, Naval Administration and Warfare in the 17th Century. (For those who don't know, 'chips' constituted the main perk of dockyard workers during this period. They were pieces of wood up to three feet long that were 'accidentally' left over during work on the ships; they could be carried out of the yard legitimately as long as they were carried on the shoulder, hence the expression.) The conference programme, available on the NDS website, contains papers by both young researchers and established authorities on the period, myself included, and promises to provide at least a partial corrective to the deafening silence about the Restoration among more august institutions! As usual, the papers will be published in due course in the NDS's well-received series of Transactions.

That reminds me - I'd better go and get on with preparing my paper...

Scarlet Fever

2010-03-05T22:43:00.000Z

I rounded off my week in Llanelli by taking in the Scarlets vs Ulster match at the new Parc y Scarlets stadium. Llanelli isn't exactly a town that's known for moving swiftly with the times: until quite recently, a wall alongside what used to be the main road from Swansea was adorned with a prominent graffito that read 'U.S. Hands Of Vietnam', simultaneously a tribute to the radicalism and illiteracy of the artist and to the apathy of a local council that couldn't be bothered to clean it off for nearly forty years. Not surprisingly, therefore, many 'locals' bemoan the passing of the historic Stradey Park ground and heap opprobrium on the club and the council for the allegedly questionable ways in which they steamrollered through the move to the new ground. There was undoubtedly a huge element of hubris in the ground's construction, as demonstrated by the decision not to sell the naming rights and a ludicrously over-optimistic set of predicted attendances (tonight, for example, the ground was less than half full, with the two end stands not opened at all; but 'less than half full' in this stadium would have virtually filled Stradey, so everything's relative).

All of this is typical of the Scarlets, a club which has always regarded itself as superior to the others in Wales: an attitude summed up by the late, great Ray Gravell's favourite motto, 'West Is Best'. Hence the club's flat refusal to merge with anyone else when the regional system was created and its projection of itself (rightly) as the most Welsh of all the regions. The prophets of doom - and Llanelli probably churns out more of them than any other town of equivalent size in the western world - have looked upon this season's poor results relative to the cost of the ground and muttered darkly that they told us so, that a region too strapped for cash to attract many big name players is doomed to fail, that the tickets are too expensive, that the crowds will never come back. Perhaps they'll be proved right. But tonight I saw a young Scarlets team destroy mighty Ulster 25-8 by playing fast, open, exciting rugby, just like that played by the great team containing the likes of Phil Bennett, J J Williams and 'Grav' himself that I watched so often in the 1970s. Two players who particularly impressed me bear names that would never have featured on a Scarlets team sheet of that era: Tavis Knoyle, a combative 20 year old scrum half who deservedly won the man of the match award, and Joe Ajuwa, a raw but exciting Nigerian wing. What's more, and although this will be heresy among the 'old guard', the more enclosed Parc y Scarlets has a far better atmosphere than the open, windy Stradey ever did - a better acoustic, a real echo, and consequently far more singing. Mind you, quite what my grandfathers, who were both prominent Scarlets clubmen in their times, would have made of the advent of cheerleaders is another matter...

Dryslwyn Castle

2010-03-04T10:59:00.000Z

This is Dryslwyn, one of the largest of the native Welsh castles, occupying a glorious hilltop position in the middle of the Towy Valley, half way between Carmarthen and Llandeilo. I was there earlier in the week, and was lucky to have excellent weather and the place virtually to myself. The castle dates from the first half of the thirteenth century, the period when the native rulers of Deheubarth (south-west Wales) were falling under the domination of the princes of Gwynedd. Dryslwyn is within sight of Dinefwr, the chief seat of the princes of Deheubarth, and was probably constructed by the same man responsible for the surviving structures there. It was enlarged in the 1280s by Rhys ap Maredudd, who was loyal to Edward I during the English campaign of conquest in 1282-3 but who rebelled in 1287, leading to a well-documented siege of the castle. The most dramatic incident during the siege was the collapse of a wall, killing several English noblemen; this was probably in the vicinity of the chapel tower, the building on the right in the general views of the castle. Dryslwyn also saw action in 1402-3 during the war of independence under Owain Glyndwr.

Dryslwyn Castle has been a particular favourite since my childhood, although that was long before it was placed under Cadw and properly excavated. Now, helpful display boards make it much easier to understand the complex layout of the castle, complicated by the fact that a small town lay outside the walls; the outlines of many of the small houses can still be seen on terraces running away along the sides of the hill to the north of the castle itself. There are some excellent descriptions of it accessible online, notably at the superb Castles of Wales website.

Dryslwyn, and the history of the princes of Deheubarth as a whole, has been comparatively neglected in fiction - something that I might set out to remedy one of these days! However, several scenes in Edith Pargeter's excellent 'Brothers of Gwynedd' series were set there, and in the nearby castles of Dinefwr and Carreg Cennen.

I'll include more of these potted accounts of castles from time to time in this blog; I've been an inveterate 'castle hunter' since the age of five, and have information on and photos of a large number of castles (not to mention churches and other historic sites) throughout the British Isles and beyond. Although this look at Dryslwyn is an exception, I'll try as far as possible to focus primarily on sites that currently have very little or no coverage on the Internet.

Book Heaven

2010-03-02T18:25:00.000Z

Back from a quick trip to Hay on Wye, about an hour and a half's drive from the 'old home town' via some stunning scenery in the Brecon Beacons. A quiet Monday in winter is probably just about the perfect time to visit Hay; I had several bookshops all to myself, so it's possible to browse contentedly without having to fight one's way to the History and Maritime shelves, as is so often the case later in the year. I made some pleasing purchases, but on the whole Hay is less of an 'experience' than it used to be, when no trip there was complete without returning weighed down by bagfuls of long-sought-after tomes or serendipitous discoveries. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of the fact that I've now got pretty well everything that I've wanted to track down over the years; perhaps it reflects the growing dominance of the Internet, both in the secondhand book market as a whole and in my own purchasing habits. On the other hand, there's no doubt that Hay is now much more overtly commercial than it used to be. There are fewer and fewer real bargains, more and more shelves swathed with publishers' remainders. Booth's bookshop, which used to be a glorious chaos, is now organised like a military operation, with properly categorised shelves, space for a person to fit comfortably between the bookcases, and (above all) is actually clean. I'm not saying that something has been lost, but gone are the days when it was possible to ferret around in darkness in the cellar and come out with a volume of the Calendar of State Papers Domestic for £10.

A couple of other book-related matters. I'm not quite sure how I managed to leave Astrodene's wonderful website-cum-blog about naval historical fiction out of the last post, but I'm very happy to remedy the omission, especially as Astrodene was one of the first to give a big push to Gentleman Captain. Meanwhile, I'm currently reading Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration. This has been very well received, but I'm always a bit sceptical about books written by non-specialists (Uglow has previously written about the likes of Hogarth and Elizabeth Gaskell). My suspicion initially seemed to be borne out by the plethora of silly factual errors that weaken the book (four on p. 18 alone); confusing the surname 'Lambert' with the place name 'Langport' is just unforgivable, as this is clearly not a typo, and she makes a monstrous howler about the number and identity of the dukes in England in 1660. But having said that, Uglow's reading has been impressively broad, embracing some manuscript sources - a rarity in this type of book. Her depiction of Charles's reactions to the circumstances in which he found himself, and the reactions toward him of others at all levels of society, is much more nuanced and perceptive than that found in many more august studies of the king. Some of her descriptions, such as that of Whitehall Palace, are quite excellent, so although I remain on a high state of howler alert, I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

2010-02-27T17:19:00.000Z

Despite the scepticism about vast swathes of the Blogosphere that I expressed in my very first post, I do find a number of blogs particularly useful and try to check on them whenever I can (although pressure of time means that this usually isn't as often as I'd like). There are some superb blogs on my main area of interest, mid- to late-17th century history and especially naval history. Jim Bender's vast labour of love on the Anglo-Dutch wars was a tremendous resource when I was writing Pepys's Navy; it's simply crammed with fascinating detail that it's often impossible to find elsewhere. The impressive Wars of Louis Quatorze does a similar job for the military history of the period. I discovered The Gentleman Administrator's blog quite recently, and like both his quirky approach and insights into some of the less familiar history and literature of the Restoration period. Not really a blog, The Diary of Samuel Pepys developed a brilliantly simple idea - putting the diary online - and expanded it into the best forum about Pepys, his life and times that can be found online. Back to more conventional blogs about naval history, and the Dutch blog Warships Research covers a remarkably diverse range of topics, again often presenting very little known material. Wearing my Naval Dockyards Society hat, I'm also impressed by James Daly's relatively new blog which focuses on Portsmouth but also ranges into many other aspects of history. I also try to check up from time to time on two lively and usually very well informed forums, Sailing Navies 1650-1850 (which covers the literature as well as the history) and The World Naval Ships Forums, which take a similarly broad brush approach to more modern naval matters.

When it comes to my rather more recent career as a writer of fiction, I'm still very much feeling my way into the potential of the Blogosphere. For example, I've yet to make a serious effort to track down the blogs of other authors working in the genre, or those of some of the authors who have particularly influenced me - but now that Blood of Kings has gone to the publisher, with the remaining edits on Mountain of Gold hopefully to be completed shortly, hunting down such resources is high up the 'to do' list for March. However, I recently came across Booksmith's remarkably wide range of online book reviews, and although his tastes are rather more catholic than mine, he's already having an alarming effect on the length of my reading list!

Scotichronicon

2010-02-23T21:26:00.000Z

In Edinburgh to complete the very last pieces of research for Blood of Kings, which goes off to the publisher at the end of the week. As ever, I can't fault the National Archives and the National Library of Scotland - invariably friendly, helpful staff, quite unlike the offhand jobsworths one finds so often in the 'great' English repositories, and excellent service, with documents still being brought to one's seat at the former. The city itself always manages to turn up a surprise or two, and on this trip it's been stumbling across the first day (or, more accurately, night) of shooting on the new John Landis film, Burke and Hare, which has a veritable 'who's who' of a cast including Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in the title roles, along with the likes of Sir Christopher Lee, Tim Curry and Bill Bailey. Unfortunately I didn't see any of them as [a] I didn't know which film was being shot until I saw the details in this morning's paper, [b] I was more intent on finding somewhere to eat. The erstwhile car park at Edinburgh Castle also has an interesting artist's impression of the spur fortification built during the Marian civil war of 1567-73, recently discovered when the area for the military tattoo was being revamped; unfortunately the trench itself was covered over long before I got here and seems to be well on the way to reverting to a car park again.

Wherever I go, I try to read as many local newspapers as possible to get a 'snapshot' of an area and its concerns. It's interesting how these concerns are often similar, regardless of where one goes. Above all, people might be disillusioned with national governments in London, Holyrood, Cardiff or Stormont, but these feelings are as nothing compared to the vitriol directed against local councils. The citizens of Edinburgh have a particularly large cross to bear in the shape of an astonishingly silly and expensive tram system, which seems to be intended primarily to rip up some of the city's principal thoroughfares for as long as possible. How the enlightened city fathers who created the beautiful eighteenth century new town must be spinning in their graves... Unfortunately, though, Edinburgh is by no means the only place to suffer: local government in Britain sometimes seems to be a refuge for the mediocre, the incompetent and the venal, regardless of their political persuasions. Perhaps this is because of the sheer number of brickbats (yes, this one included) that get thrown in their direction, which is hardly likely to engender a sense of public duty. I know I'm wronging many able and highly conscientious councillors and council employees, but the simply crass policies inflicted on virtually every community that I know pretty well suggests that they are in a minority. Just be thankful that very few places have embarked on schemes that are quite as expensive or mismanaged as the Edinburgh tram system...

Dumbing Down the Past?

2010-02-20T18:59:00.000Z

They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and in one sense, there’s no such thing as a bad History programme on TV. Any History on TV is to be welcomed with open arms, if only for the role it can play in remedying the frequently shocking treatment of the subject in our schools (a topic for another day) and the woeful ignorance displayed by the general public (and if you think that’s a bit harsh, watch any daytime quiz show). There are several entire channels devoted to ‘History’, or at least, to those very limited areas of History that production companies think will draw an audience; hence the endless refighting of World War II. It’s easy to assume that the output on these channels will be far less worthy than anything that manages to find airtime on the major terrestrial channels, but in fact the opposite is true. Many of the programmes on the digital channels are made on a comparative shoestring, and fill up their airtime with ‘talking heads’ who are often well qualified (and conveniently cheap) academics. As a result it’s often possible to find real analysis and original ideas on such programmes, delivered by real experts in their fields. The same is true of much of the output of BBC and ITV regional stations, who produce some superb historical programmes. Thus in terms of the broadcasting of History, quantity can equal quality, and often does.

Now contrast that with the situation on the networked terrestrial channels, particularly the BBC. Convinced that only big names and sensationalised, ‘accessible’ scripts will attract viewers, right-on metrocentric production teams install a ‘household name’ such as Messrs Ferguson, Snow, Starkey and Schama, the Jonathan Rosses of broadcast History, and get them to pontificate on anything under the sun, no matter how far it strays from their actual area of expertise. Add the obligatory incessant background music, pretentious photography and flashy editing that permits no more than five minutes on any one topic in case a bored audience switches en masse to MTV or Dave, and you have the modern documentary. This leads to beautifully made but desperately superficial programmes such as Dan Snow’s recent ‘Empire of the Seas’, allegedly a history of the Royal Navy. Despite being eternally grateful to the BBC for broadcasting any naval history at all, I could fill several websites by listing all the deficiencies of this series. For example, a viewer from another planet might assume from it that there had been no such thing as a navy before about 1560, that the 1690s was a period of naval defeat ended only by the creation of the Bank of England (thereby omitting the battles of Barfleur / La Hogue in 1692, which effectively drove the French fleet into port for the rest of the war), and that the navy was responsible for creating the slave trade, rather than being responsible for ending it. Neil Oliver’s recent ‘History of Scotland’ was a more impressive effort, despite Oliver’s presentational style frequently resembling an over-excited puppy. Oliver had more programmes allocated to him than Snow, and although many in the historical establishment in Scotland have criticised his concentration on kings and clans rather than on more politically correct social history, at least Oliver was able to create the sort of coherent narrative that Snow lacked – and was more accurate on matters of detail to boot. Ultimately, a good historical documentary should be based on research as solid as that which goes into a respectable historical book, and above all it should place respect for the facts above superficial audience-pleasing gimmicks. Neil Oliver’s series and much of the output found on the digital channels succeed on those criteria; regrettably, ‘Empire of the Seas’ doesn’t.

Size Isn't Everything

2010-02-19T18:04:00.000Z

There’s currently much debate about whether or not to continue with the hugely expensive project to build two new 65,000 ton aircraft carriers. These ships, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be by far the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. Even if the project isn’t cancelled outright – and if it isn’t, it’ll only be because of prohibitive penalty clauses, not the navy’s blatantly childish attempt to give them names that would make cancellation politically embarrassing – then it’s been suggested that one could be completed as a commando carrier (despite being far too big and hi-spec for that role) or else sold to India, whose navy is expanding almost as rapidly as that of its former imperial overlord is contracting.

Now, I’m no expert on modern naval matters, although my interest in naval history began as a young ‘warship spotter’ during the 1960s and 1970s. But it seems to me that there are several issues here, and several interesting historical parallels. The very fact that the carriers were ordered at all, or haven’t been cancelled already, can surely be attributed in part to the employment that they’ll provide in Labour strongholds or marginal seats; and, as the saying goes, it’s shurely shome coincidence that final assembly on them is due to take place at Rosyth, immediately adjacent to the constituency of a certain G Brown, MP. No matter how much ministers seek to deny this, there are plenty of precedents – Labour did exactly the same in 1979 when it ordered the Batch 3 Type 42 destroyers in the immediate run-up to a general election, much good that it did former Sub-Lieutenant Jim Callaghan, and many warship orders in the 1920s and 1930s were placed partly to provide employment in desperately depressed shipyard towns.

However, the most senior officers of the Senior Service also seem to be suffering from a very severe case of gigantism. Not only do we have the carrier project, we also have the Type 45 destroyers, so expensive that only six of them will be built, and the Astute-class submarines – only four of which have been ordered so far, primarily because they're ‘more complex than the space shuttle’. Even leaving aside the vexed issues of Trident submarines and the appropriateness or otherwise of the UK’s pretensions to global status, there’s clearly something wrong-headed about the current Royal Navy's priorities, and many others have already commentated on its serious weaknesses vis-a-vis any escalation of the current dispute in the Falklands. Perhaps the explanation is simple enough. Like your present blogger, the most senior officers of the Royal Navy are all children of the 1950s; they entered the service in the 1960s and the 1970s. Therefore it would hardly be surprising if they still retained something of a Cold War mindset – a more charitable interpretation of their enthusiasm for a few huge, expensive warships than suggesting that they might also be driven by inter-service macho posturing. Other former imperial powers, notably France and the Netherlands, have accepted the need for some smaller, less sophisticated vessels that can protect their maritime resources as well as ‘showing the flag’ in their remaining overseas possessions; after all, as many others have said, even the most sophisticated and flexible warship in the world can only be in one place at once. Even the mighty United States Navy, the ultimate repository of naval gigantism, is building smaller, multi-purpose ‘Littoral Combat Ships’. But the Royal Navy still seems to be haunted by the ghost of Jacky Fisher, who scrapped most of the colonial gunboats in the first decade of the twentieth century on the grounds that only big and expensive mattered. Perhaps the other relevant ghost at this particular banquet is the spectre of King Charles I, who launched the Sovereign of the Seas in 1637: a vast, cripplingly expensive warship, completely inappropriate to the actual strategic needs of the country at the time. Sounds familiar? Perhaps some of those responsible for the aircraft carrier project had better hope that history doesn’t repeat itself, because the financial and political ramifications of building such a huge ship ultimately cost Charles his head.

Athos to Aberystwyth

2010-02-18T08:38:00.000Z

My recent stay in Dubai gave me a chance to enjoy one book that had been on my 'to read' list for months and another that was a chance discovery at the excellent bookshop in Dubai Mall. The former is Malcolm Pryce's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth', the third in his series of surreal novels set in the Cardiganshire town that I know very well of old. I've also read the first two, and must admit that my internal jury is still out. The concept is simply brilliant - this is an Aberystwyth that exists in a slightly unsettling parallel universe, more noir than any Sidney Greenstreet movie, and set in a Wales scarred by a 1960s Vietnam-like war in Patagonia. Some of Pryce's comic touches and plot devices are sheer genius, perhaps especially so if one knows his setting: his description of the difficulties of gaining access to the National Library of Wales will strike a particularly rib-tickling chord with any reader at that august institution. I also loved his play on Rambo / Rimbaud, although I'd advise Stallone to stick to the former and avoid the latter. But I often find Pryce's vision a little too bleak, and the paperback edition of 'Unbearable Lightness' is undermined by his own publisher's provision of one of the most outrageous plot spoilers I've seen in recent times. Number four in the series, 'Don't Cry For Me Aberystwyth', is also on my shelves and rising slowly to the top of the 'to read' list, so perhaps the internal jury will finally return a verdict then.

The chance discovery was Arturo Perez-Reverte's 'The Dumas Club'. I'm a fan of Perez-Reverte's 'Captain Alatriste' series (indeed, it's been a big influence on my own series of 'Quinton Journals') and recently enjoyed the excellent film version, 'Alatriste' starring Viggo Mortensen - a classic case of a seemingly improbable casting that actually works brilliantly. As with Pryce, the plot of 'The Dumas Club' provides a kind of parallel universe, in this case one where the characters of 'The Three Musketeers' seem to take over a group of disparate individuals in a plot that intricately interweaves Richelieu's France with diabolism and the theft of rare books. The loving descriptions of sixteenth and seventeenth century texts that pervade 'The Dumas Club' make the book a bibliophile's delight, although the ending seemed a little flat. Overall, though, it's whetted my appetite for the next Alatriste novel, 'The Man in the Yellow Doublet'; and yes, that's on the 'to read' list too.

...or, Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger

2010-02-17T10:38:00.000Z

It wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the blogosphere, but it wouldn't be far short. Until now, I've looked on blogging as a suspiciously self-indulgent activity that also leads to a huge amount of unsourced, prejudiced or simply wrong information getting onto the Internet. BUT...I've finally been persuaded that a blog might be a useful adjunct to my writing, e.g. as a way of promoting my books and, much more importantly, as a means of communicating with my readers and a wider audience. I hope that in a very small way my blog might also give me an opportunity to challenge some of the absurdities about History and related matters that regularly crop up on the Web. I taught History for the best part of 30 years, so in some senses the blog - like my books - will be a natural development from teaching. As far as possible, I always tried to make my lessons interesting, informative and fun (cue comments from ex-students who were bored stiff, no doubt), not always adhering to the strict confines of the curriculum, so I hope to do the same with this blog. The discipline of History - and as I'm fast coming to realise, the writing of fiction as well - seems to be treated too often as a matter of deadly seriousness by many of its practitioners and acolytes, leading to pretentiousness and pomposity on a grand scale. I'll try my best to provide a corrective to those tendencies and to some of the dafter myths that are circulating unchallenged in cyberspace.

Two brief examples to begin with, both of which fall within my alleged area of expertise. Quite a few bloggers seem to want to claim Samuel Pepys as one of their own, in other words as an early proto-blogger - some, indeed, explicitly compare themselves to Pepys. (I won't denigrate them directly by linking to specific examples, but set up a Google Alert for 'Pepys' and you'll find them quickly enough.) Let's leave aside the fact that Pepys was witty, self-aware, perceptive, literate and deeply interested in the world around him, qualities that seem to be absent in many of his would-be successors. More importantly, blogging is all about publishing one's thoughts and deeds to the widest audience possible. What Pepys did was the exact opposite of that. Encoding his diary in shorthand, and then doubly encoding the more intimate passages in an invented hybrid of several European languages, ensured that it would have been almost impossible for any contemporary (particularly his wife) to access his musings. True, he provided a key by which future generations could eventually unlock the code; Pepys had as broad a streak of vanity as many bloggers, but he was determined that only posterity would read his words; and blogs, including this one, by definition aren't written for posterity. So can we please drop the Pepys / blogger comparisons? Secondly, for many months now a story has been doing the rounds of the Internet. It goes something like this: to overcome sailors' superstitions about Fridays, during the 19th century the Royal Navy deliberately build a warship called HMS Friday, launched it on a Friday, sent it to sea on a Friday, etc etc ad nauseam, ending (of course) with the punchline that it set off on its maiden voyage and was never seen again. Sorry, surfers. I've spent far too many days in UK naval archives looking at the original sources that would contain such a story if it was true, and far too many inches of shelf space in my Lair are taken up by the key reference books listing all the ships of the Royal Navy for the last five centuries or so. In a nutshell, then: it didn't happen, it's a complete fiction, it's simply untrue. The person who originally put this story online should be ashamed of themselves; this is probably the most extreme sanction I can advocate for him or her, as in certain quarters hanging people from lampposts or putting them against a wall and shooting them is not necessarily looked upon as politically correct.

Finally, most of the posts in this blog will probably be about matters like these, and hopefully will be considerably shorter. But as an increasingly grumpy fiftysomething, I'm not going to guarantee that I won't occasionally (and, yes, hypocritically) launch into one of the self-indulgent digressions that turned me off blogging for so long. I promise that there won't be much politics (and certainly no overt party politics on one side or any other) and there'll be even less religion. There'll be no crackpot conspiracy theories, unless it's in order to debunk them. There'll be no endless detail about what I did on holiday. But I might sometimes stray into some of life's other important matters, such as the state of Welsh rugby, the decline of the pub and the quest for the perfect toasted cheese sandwich. Who knows?