Graham Dalton

 The trouble with writing historical fiction is that the genre is dominated by stories of political intrigue and famous females, like the Other Boleyn. Bernard Cornwell, Hornblower and Nigel Tranter are a kind of sub group to which my interest belongs. I want to do something on the Stuart era which has been overlooked because of Bonny Prince Charlie and his Jacobites. I'll get a good handle on the thing by the time I've reworked the first Fergus Findlay novel and maybe laid out a sequel to Bubbles in the Cauldron but I am intrigued by the Dunkirque pirates and the navy of Samuel Pepys. I've slept in the marina that is one of the remaining structures of the old Chatham dockyard, infested by the Dutch in the era and which will no doubt feature in the series. As yet I have only vague ideas of characters and it may turn out to be a collection of stand alone books rather than a simple series. I'd like to keep most of it in Highland waters, but I don't think that will lim...

 Now that Bubbles in the Cauldron is out and I have Drover back in my own hands, I must get Drover overhauled and given a new title.  Drover was one of the early books and I have learned a lot since then, more recently from Lorraine Mace but also just by reading and writing and comparing. Drover came from my love of the Highlands and the history of the people. I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't think history is decided by kings and emperors, their contributions are temporary, but by the advancing mood and belief of the mass of the people. The uprising of 1820 for example was triggered by laws like the malt tax but the long term result was a growing awareness of the power of the majority. Churchill went to war with Nazi Germany, but could he have done that without the will of the electorate behind him? Slavery was abolished in the British Empire because the people of Britain found it abhorrent and ordered the Navy to enforce their will, not only on British traders but on anyone ...

 In my researches into the Stuarts, I have come across some tales that belong in Bernard Cornwell style Viking  sagas. They are from Scotland in the time of James V1 and !st and this is the start:- Two MacLeods set of,, in winter on a fishing trip ut the weather grew grim and they landed on the island of Eigg, belonging to the MacDonalds. They were given shelter and fed but, in Walter Scotts' words, were guilty of some incivility to a young woman were tied up and, after their boat was towed out to sea, set adrift. They lay in the boat for several hours and were on the point of expiring, when a MacLeod boat fond them. The fishers complained to their chief, who immediately set off to Eigg to take revenge. The MacDonalds saw him coming and hid in a cave on the island which has only a small entrance big enough to crawl through but opens up to a cavern. MacLeod searched for two days, burning and looting the crofts but found no sign of the people and, as it had started to snow, deci...