That I was Head Boy in my last year helped me towards an army commission when I signed on for what then was two years compulsory military service. Service, though by no means active, in Germany made quite a contrast to Bury, at that time something of a rural backwater. After the army I was accepted at the London School of Economics where I read politics and history followed by postgraduate research which led to a PhD in 1966. I then taught for a while before turning to print and television journalism, combining features for The Observer with reporting and documentaries for the BBC and Granada. But my first love was books. My first book was published in 1969. The current total is around twenty five publications, most biography or modern history. My Wikipedia entry tells the full story. My last book, on the Berlin Airlift came out last year and the latest, Waiting for War, all about 1939, will be published in July.
What next, who can say? Our family is wide spread. Our son and his family are in Brussels, our daughter and her family are in Oslo. Mary and I have a farmhouse in South West France where we spend half the year. You can guess how we voted in the referendum. Somehow I have managed to hold off the disadvantages of old age. I live a very happy life.
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