To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make
Without an understanding of history, we are politically, culturally and socially impoverished. If we sacrifice history to economic pressures or to budget cuts, we will lose a part of who we are.
At a purely practical level, history is important because it provides the basic skills needed for students to go further in sociology, politics, international relations and economics. History is also an ideal discipline for almost all careers in the law, the civil service and the private sector.
School-leavers unfortunately will come away thinking the First World War consisted simply of 'going over the top' on the Western Front to slaughter in no-man's-land, when the conflict extended so much further, to the collapse of four empires and numerous civil wars.
When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.
When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.
I can't envisage stopping writing.
I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken.
Entertainment history is now the main source of supposedly historical knowledge for more and more people, but 'histo-tainment' is superficial and lacks all context.
It is this compulsion to look backwards at a time of crisis because one's got no idea of what lies ahead. There is a notion of security that somehow it must resemble the past. It's never going to. Just because we muddled through in the past doesn't mean we can automatically muddle through in the future.
Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of others.
Restorers of paintings and pottery follow a code of conduct in their work to distinguish the original material from what they are adding later.
I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.
Counter-knowledge covers the propagation of false legends and conspiracy theories often used for political purposes or fundamentalist religious propaganda.
I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.
I joined the Army in 1965 and served with the 11th Hussars, which I loved. The regiment was so relaxed - a salute was more like a friendly wave.
At the beginning of June 1944, the war was reaching a climax. German troops had been brutalised by the savagery of the ongoing fighting in Russia, where the Red Army was secretly preparing its vast encirclement of the Germans' Army Group Centre.
I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.
I used to write in a room overlooking the valley from where I could see too much, whether checking the sheep and alpacas or seeing the trout rise on the lake.
The greatest heroes of the Normandy battlefield were the unarmed medics, whom snipers often shot at despite their Red Cross armbands.
