When I left school in the sixties, jobs were plentiful but I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had a holiday job working in a steel stockholders when I heard there was a job going as a reporter on the local paper, and from that chance beginning, albeit with a few hiccups along the way, I have kept body and soul together.
I was apprenticed to the Grantham Journal in Lincolnshire as a journalist. From there I followed a trail of newspapers from Melton Mowbray to Leicester, London, and Kent, before joining the Ministry of Defence as an Information Officer. A year or so in, I was asked to start a new newspaper for the British Army to run in tandem with the popular Soldier Magazine. This came with promotion and I ran the paper for two years. Then I was posted to Brecon looking after all PR matters for the army in Wales.
I took the decision to resign when I was posted to RAF Strike Command at High Wycombe. and was immediately asked to start a newspaper for the Territorial Army in Wales.
But there was a snag, I had to join the TA, and go through officer training which I naively agreed to do. After a year running all over Sennybridge Training Area and digging most of it up, at the age of 34 I duly presented myself at Sandhurst. I was not a memorable cadet but armed with age and cunning I managed to look as if I was keeping up with youth and speed and was duly awarded my first pip.
I joined the fledgling TA Pool of Information Officers, a very jolly club which did an enormous amount of positive PR work for the army, Regular and TA, subsequently morphing into the Media Ops Group. I also completed two short service Regular commissions.
I started writing books, and one or two even finished, but I wasn’t happy with any of them. I was fascinated by the Roman invasion of Cambria, and could see a book there so duly put finger to keyboard and for once the story seemed to flow quite naturally. Then, as well as starting the second of what will be a trilogy, as my hero Lenc wanders through some of the momentous events of that turbulent time I had to prepare my book for print and digital. In my ignorance I thought that something I could manage quite easily.
How wrong I was. This was a challenge I never expected. Perhaps I should write a book about it.
AD 56. Lenculus of Alesia, an Auxiliary attached to XX Valeria has volunteered to spy ahead of the Legion in southern Cambria. The Legion is to campaign against the Celts but before they march, they need maps. What is the terrain like? Are there routes through the inhospitable and dangerous mountains?
The Legion's Special Forces have tried and failed to penetrate this tight community of warrior tribes, so a young Gaul Auxiliary must try.
Lenc witnesses the arrival of the fugitive Caratacus, who although resoundingly beaten in every encounter with Rome is convinced that his destiny is to be the first King of a united Britannia. But to do that he needs the support of the warring tribes of Cambria. Who are more used to fighting each other than outsiders.
Lenc is terrified that his flimsy story will not be believed by the suspicious tribes until a fight to the death in Silurian territory half convinces them he may be genuine. By then he is infatuated with the lovely Princess Veldicca whose views on being a warrior princess, marriage and fidelity actually shock the hard-bitten soldier.
Título : The Red Mountain
EAN : 9781838218010
Editorial : Douglas McArthur
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