In 1870, when Lt. Gen. Butler at the request of the Canadian government travelled along the North Saskatchewan River on horseback, canoe and later dog sled from Winnipeg to Rocky Mountain House west of Edmonton, he carried with him a supply of smallp...

Many of you have seen the excellent “Crown” mini-series on Netflix and are curious about Britain’s post-war economic problems which plagued the government in the 1960s and 70s. The economic costs of the war were enormous. Six years of warfare and the...

I don’t know whether any of you are fans of The Borgias television series which stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI. I’m a big fan and have seen most of the episodes either in French or in English. In the first episode, which I saw the last week ...

This week I am finishing up my screenplay “Johnny Reb in Montreal” about the manhunt across the province of Quebec of Lt Bennett Young and his Confederate soldier friends. This is the story of the St. Albans, Vermont raid and the trial in Montreal of...

In the summer of 1485, at the start of the reign of Henry VII, a previously unseen disease started to spread across England. It was believed that it was brought to England by French mercenaries in Henry Tudor’s army. Henry Tudor arrived in Londo...

I remember visiting the HMS Victory in Portsmouth as an English schoolboy. The Battle of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson’s heroic demise had everything to attract the interest of young English boys. So it is not surprising that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ...

In my historical research for my upcoming novel “Remembrance Man”, I have come across several unique kinds of dwellings that existed back in 1832. I have always been interested in early North American architecture. I would often wonder how Southerner...

I’m coming, I’m coming the scourge of mankind,I float on the waters, I ride on the wind,Great hunger and squalor prepare my dread way,In the homes of the wretched my sceptre I sway,In filthy, damp alleys and courts I reign,O’er the dark stagnant pool...

In January 2019, the New Scientist in London announced that the US Army has solved the mystery around the identity of the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess. The article maintained that a blood sample was taken from Hess back in 1982 by US Army doctor Phi...

This week I have been working on my new book and, as usual, research is an important part of this work. The novel entitled “Remembrance Man” is about the cholera epidemic in 1832. Most of us don’t remember the great pandemics of previous centuries an...

During the parliamentary shenanigans in the UK this week, I was thinking about how Britain has always had a foothold in Europe and Europe in Britain. Brexit won’t change much of anything. Remember the ‘Pale of Calais’ back in the fourteenth cent...

For some twenty years I believed the story about Sarner’s disease which appeared in the CBC’s Ideas program back in April 1996. I was particularly interested in the cholera epidemic of 1832 which is the subject of my fourth novel in preparation. Well...

I came across another interesting historical snippet recently while revising my television scripts for “An Absolute Secret”. Does anyone remember Harry Hopkins, the adviser to President Roosevelt during the war years? The man who spent 3 ½ years livi...

This week I thought I would tell you a little bit about my career in filmmaking. I fell in love with making moving pictures, but I was never much of a cinephile. I have always preferred to read the book rather than see the movie. I used to go to the ...

As a writer of historical fiction, I think that writers owe it to their readers to provide some reference as to the veracity of the information he or she is providing even if it is a fictional work. I mix true stories based on facts that appear in hi...