I
was born in Aberdeen in Scotland, scraping into the 60’s
by a couple of days. I was also lucky enough to be
brought up in the stunningly beautiful but alarmingly remote
Orkney Islands, then ran off to sea and university, not
necessarily in that order.
After a few years drawing lines on charts, saluting people
with gold braid and learning to drink the right kind of
claret, I left Her Majesty’s Senior Service with a
keen interest in both diving and history. The navy had sponsored
me through university, so I went back to school, combining
the two interests by studying underwater archaeology at
St. Andrews.
After working on a few watery sites I managed to land a
temporary job in the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London,
a job which lasted ten years. Although the Tower never gave
me a company car, I did have a company cannon, which I was
sometimes allowed to fire at historical reenactors.
When the museum wanted to relocate to Leeds I’m afraid
I voted with my feet and moved to Key West, Florida, where
I became the Chief Curator of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.
Mel Fisher was the treasure hunter who found the fabled
Spanish galleon Atocha, and the museum was crammed with
as much gold, silver and shiny jewels as any piratical diver
could want.
In 2001 I returned to Britain, ostensibly to fix up and
sell my London house, but also to pursue my writing career.
I’d already written several books by that time, and
it seemed a good idea. The books have been rolling off the
stocks ever since!
Most of my early publications were for Osprey Publishing,
who specialise in military and naval history books, but
my publication list grew to include large ‘coffee
table’? histories, maritime books, and several books
about pirates.
These days I’m based in Edinburgh, the beautiful Scottish
capital. As ‘Auld Reekie’ is a Unesco City of
Literature and plays host to the Edinburgh International
Book festival, I view the city as a perfect base for a historian
who wants to keep his feet firmly in the past and the present
at the same time!
