2024 arrived with a difficult decision to park the opening 30,000 words of a new Viking novel I had begun in the autumn of '23, in place of a return to Roman Britain. 

It's not easy to sit back and critically assess a project and decide "hmmm, I'm not so sure about this." Believe me. The cost of research as well as creative time invested mounts up in the mental ledger, but 'parking' a project is not the same as binning it entirely so better to make the hard decision and move on.

My Viking heroes may set sail for the Dalriada kingdom of Skye another time.

The Soldiers of The Boar series has come to its natural conclusion, but the Roman presence in Scotland has not. The year moves forward to AD 207/8 and the emperorship of Septimius Severus who determined to solve the problem of the northern tribes forever.

The first draft is now under way and features entirely new characters (and perhaps a nod to the past, but only that).

No Velio or Gallus.

Further updates will follow.

January 24 also saw a press release about a Roman 'armour sleeve' from Trimontium, originally discovered by the principal excavator James Curle a hundred years ago, circa 1911. The armour has lain in pieces in a box for decades and has only recently been jigsawed back together for inclusion in a forthcoming exhibition by the British Museum. The press coverage was very interesting and only goes to show treasure can be found in boxes even after all this time. 

This week the British press announced a discovery from the Roman/Germannic battlefield of Kalkriese in Germany - see blog 40 and the wonderful work done by Tony Clunn.

It was not the discovery itself that rocked my morning coffee, it was the repercussions of it, in a historical cum archaeological sense. In case you have not seen it, the article talks about what is believed to be the first full set of Roman army  lorica segmentata ever found.

Lorica segmentata is the body armour that you, quite likely, will picture Roman legionaries wearing. This is a full, complete set of the various metal strips that went to make up the armour of chest, belly and those massive shoulder coverings..

Grisly details were a vicarious extra. Chemical analysis of the severely rusted armour showed the chemical residue of its last wearer. In other words he died in his armour and he was probably an ordinary legionary. The "Tomasius Atkinius" of his day.

The newspaper article speculated that he might have been a post battle sacrifice.  The helmet was not to hand so his head may have decorated a nearby tree in true Germanic tribal tradition.

And the point of all this is?

Well just this. Aside from the speculative thought that some poor legionary endured not only three or four days of a running battle through the German forests, and got chopped at the end of it all in a bloody sacrifice, it's the idea that in all of the Roman Empire, throughout the hundreds of years it ruled, only one single set of full body armour has ever been found. Remnants of chain mail and bits of segmentata have been found in Britain but nothing so complete. Cavalry helmets abound, Roman shoes, swords, spear heads, ladies letters from Vindolanda, but the staple bit of kit that defined the Roman army? Just one example.

It's probably me, but by comparison you can visit the Western Front and pick up sobering souvenirs from a hundred years ago. They are relatively cheap and plentiful. No licence required. 

Yet hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers served and died on campaigns and in battles. And there is ( allegedly ) only one complete set of lorica segmentata recovered - in the entire area that comprised the Roman world.

What if it turns out to be  the only one "we" ever find? Soil conditions and the passage of time do terrible things to metal artefacts. 

"Tomasius Atkinius" left his armour to posterity, He left the last glimpse of more than just a battle. 

Since the launch of Centurion of The Boar as the third part of the Soldiers of The Boar trilogy, I have been wondering what to blog about next. Readers of the blog will know I like the quirky links of history. And though it's been a while since I posted a blog I have come across another little "co-incidence" - call it what you will.

I am considered a cavalry story as a possible follow up to the trilogy and as part of my research bought a copy of "The Roman Cavalry" by Karen R. Dixon and Pat Southern. 

At the time the book was published (1992) Dixon and Southern were working on Ph.Ds at Newcastle University and their book is an archaeologically based account of how the Romans organised this part of their armies. 

One of their quoted sources is "Cavalry: its History and Tactics." Published in 1853. Author, Captain L.E.Nolan." (Lewis Edward Nolan.) This was one of two books he authored, the other being Nolan's System for Training Cavalry Horses. He is worth an entire post in his own right. One to follow in the future, I think.

However, his name caught my eyes because it was Captain Nolan, officer in the 15th Hussars.

Fast forward from Roman times to The Crimea, Battle of Balaclava, 25th October 1854.

Nolan delivers a message/order from British commander Lord Raglan that the Russian enemy is to be prevented from removing captured artillery pieces from the battlefield. He uses Nolan as a gifted horseman to deliver his order to his sub commander, Lord Lucan who passes it on to Lord Cardigan, commander of the Light Horse Brigade. Unfortunately, Lucan and Cardigan hate each other with a vengeance. Not a good working relationship in a battle.

Further misfortune beckons, there are two valleys, the North valley and the South valley. Nolan points at the wrong one - the North valley, heavily defended and not a place for unsupported Light Cavalry to venture, which Lord Cardigan undoubtedly must have suspected was a mistake. Hence the need for Captain Nolan to positively identify the target to Lord Cardigan.

"There is the Enemy and there are the Guns." 

Thereby sending the Light Brigade to its destruction. Infamous words of intended clarification.

How tragic for Nolan that for all his knowledge and skill as a man and as a teacher of horses, his name is remembered for a mistake made in the heat of war. But his written words of advice and instruction have stood the test of time and added much to Dixon and Southern's book.

"The charge must be decided promptly, and executed vigorously; always met, and carried out at speed."

How prophetic.

I think the next one is going to have to be a cavalry story.

Centurion of The Boar is the final part of my Roman trilogy 'Soldiers of The Boar.'

It has received this crit from a reader on Amazon which I was delighted to see. Very gratifying indeed. 

"A very satisfying and well realised conclusion to Allan Harper's Roman trilogy. The action has moved south to the Lake District and over to Gaul where Velio hopes to join old comrades in the wine business. However, there is plenty of treachery afoot at home and abroad, and Velio's last patrol threatens to be just that. Until I saw Tony Robinson's 'Walking Through History' programme I had no idea that there was a Roman fort at Hardknott Pass. For those who know the pass, it is a beautiful and desolate spot and difficult to access on foot. I enjoyed the previous storyline based at the Antonine wall in Scotland and I think that the author has chosen another excellent but relatively unknown location in Roman Britain. Allan Harper wisely resists the temptation to tie up all the loose ends and one or two villains have yet to receive their full comeuppance. Plot lines for a fourth novel, perhaps?

It would be great if this trilogy could be given the full publishing house experience, including detailed maps, but for me the real treat would be an audiobook version narrated by a master of voices like Jonathan Keeble. Allan Harper has created some memorable characters, bravo!"

As to whether there will be a fourth 'Velio' novel, I cannot say at the moment. Perhaps new characters in Roman Britannia beckon?

The grapes will need time to ripen. 

Almost sixty one years to the day from Blog 48, (25th June 1876) on a different continent entirely another military event takes place. It would be rated a tiny affair by Napoleonic standards, had that still been the norm. Its losses trivial by headcount. It was a tiny affair even by American Civil War standards which were much closer in time. And yet it has intrigued and captivated historians, novelists and film-makers alike. George Armstrong Custer takes his immediate command and most, but not all of his cavalry regiment on a ride into history, modern mythology and legend.

Why so "a tiny affair?"

He has a mere two hundred and sixteen men directly at his side. His sub-commanders Major Reno has one hundred and fifty five men, and Captain Benteen has one hundred and forty five men. They are about to poke a metaphorical stick into an encampment of circa fifteen hundred highly motivated warriors and it does not end well. 

So much for numbers. Waterloo effectively sounds the protracted death knell for Napoleon. The  Little Big Horn does the same for Sitting Bull (and Crazy Horse). One of them the victor and the other the loser, they share a strange symmetry. Either way their respective battle becomes the beginning of the end. Interestingly the name Sitting Bull is a lazy corruption of his true name which is something more akin to "Bull who is sitting," or "Bull who sits down."

To call the Little Big Horn a 'battle' is perhaps a reflection of the times and society in which it occurred. There must have been many small skirmish encounters that failed to trouble the quills of contemporary Napoleonic historians.  Despite that, on very nearly the same day of the same month, sixty one years apart, two men of of very different cultures carved their names into history. 

There was report in several newspapers yesterday (18th June, the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo), of a report by Professor Tony Pollard of Glasgow University regarding one of the great mysteries of the battle. He is a professor of conflict history and archaeology. The mystery is: what happened to all the bodies? Not, I hasten to add,  were they not incinerated  or buried, but why are there no bones left for modern archaeologists working on Waterloo to find? 

And his theory has shaken my understanding of the battle and its aftermath.

(Incidentally, there is a very good book on the aftermath by Paul O'Keefe titled,  no surprises, " Waterloo - The Aftermath.")

It is  matter of record that looters and thieves were active virtually as soon as the last shots were fired and the French army chased from the field. Within hours the bodies were stripped of everything, including in some cases, teeth.

Professor Pollard's view,  is both startling and gruesome, beyond macabre. It is quite likely the bones were dug up from the very visible graves that peppered the fields and turned into fertiliser, thence imported for manuring farms in Britain and other countries. Not just bones from Waterloo but also from other Napoleonic battle fields.  Apparently this is not a new theory but seems to be the emerging reason for the lack of discoveries on the field itself. The mind's imaginings of mass graves being opened up after a suitable period for decomposition and the contents being loaded up and carted off down the Brussels Road make me shudder. 

It seems incredible at this remote distance in time to imagine a trade in dead soldier's bones for crop fertiliser. The later Victorian practice of sending children up chimney's with brushes to sweep soot hardly registers in comparison. I can understand horses being "recycled" in the modern parlance , in this way but the bodies themselves seems horrific, beyond callous. 

But perhaps I'm being naive? I write fiction set in Roman Britain, so what do I imagine happened to the vanquished of those times? Well, they lived in more brutal times than the soldiers of George, the Prince Regent. I guess brutal is as brutal does. A green and pleasant land indeed.

Blog Forty five, this blog is getting positively middle aged.

It's an odd thing that when Velio Pinneius came out of the ether and invented or created himself in 'Legionaries of The Boar'  I did not know what he looked like.  I developed him, as best I could, as a character and yet I could not have picked him out of a police line up as the principal offender-suspect.  I knew what he thought and what he said, how he felt about life and duty.  I had him in my head as a person, a soldier, hero, flawed warrior, disappointed in love, reconciled to serving the empire of Rome and lonely Britannia.  But not his face. No, I did not see that at all. Which, to be frank was a little bit tricky. I'm writing about an invisible man! - not good.

Part of the joy of a book is every reader imagines every character differently. My Gallus Tiomaris is not your Gallus. Who is Gallus?  'Legionaries of the Boar' explains all.  :) 

Still, it felt like something was not quite right. Velio where art thou?

I do a lot of YouTube music watching, from Highland piping- my own folly, to country and western, to folk, to miscellaneous rock.

I happened on the Canadian music legend, Gordon Lightfoot's song, 'Early Morning Rain' and found it taking root in my head. A bit of browsing took me to "Gord's Gold" , his album circa 1974/5/6 I think, and there , on the album cover, if cropped for leather jacket and full head of hair - leaving just the eyes, cheekbones, nose, mouth and chin, was my invisible hero, Centurion Velio Pinneius revealed.  At last, the stare of a Roman centurion, with a mere hint of understanding of other men's weaknesses. 

He might not be the Velio Pinneius you see in your head, but he's got the essence. Thank you Gordon Lightfoot.  The Boar legion salutes you. And 'Gord's Gold' stands the test of time too.

If you follow this blog you will know I have a penchant for the film Zulu. And I'm not alone , I know you're out there '716.'

I've been rereading a book by Sheldon Hall - "Zulu - with some guts behind it." The inside story of the making of the film. It came out in 2005. Lots of interesting background information as you might expect.  One bit that caught my attention explains the creation of the famous ' train in the distance' sound of the approaching Zulu impi to Rorke's Drift. It is the most evocative and thus memorable sound of the entire film in my humble opinion. In an odd kind of way it encapsulates the film, signalling the oncoming danger. Anyway the 'train' sound was apparently made by syncing the sound of the beating of the shields into the sound of a real train going over rails, with added bass depth. Clever stuff.

Then Sheldon went and spoiled it all. A pity, he was doing so well. It happened like this. There are two particular scenes where the Zulu songs play a key part in the film. The first is the first (major) scene- -the mass Zulu wedding, and the second is the 'challenge and reply' scene preceding the attack on the second morning. (The Men of Harlech bit.) 

Provided no one else is in the room I've always been happy to join in with the Zulus - you get to a certain age and  - what the hell, let's go with some added "Naaaa, Naaa n Naaa's."

Where's the harm, officer?

To cut a long story short he interviewed two Zulus, one of whom is the great grandson of the real Zulu commander at Isandhlwana,  Tshingwayo no less. The other interviewee's grandfather had also fought at Isandhlwana. So, two well qualified sources. And their  summary of the Zulu chants, songs used in the film?  They couldn't make out /understand most of the words. Even the meanings of the songs/chants were elusive or unclear. 

It seems a tad unlikely that the sound crew didn't get this, you would have most of it would have been clear enough . . . . . or perhaps there were other agendas in play at the interview? A signal as deft as the 'train in the distance.' 

It doesn't alter, change or spoil this splendid film, though it adds a different perspective to how it is viewed. I suppose I'll just have to keep supplying the additional 'Naaa, Naaa N Naas' until someone can work it out.

If you are a fan of the film and get hold of the book, it is well worth a read: published by Tomahawk Press, Sheffield.

I  don't usually venture into the world of expressing political or semi-political opinions. Certainly not on this blog. My politics, like my spiritual beliefs, I tend to keep to myself, but the current, reprehensible, events in Ukraine have generated fears and concerns across the world. They got me thinking about invasions. Military ones, not animal, or socio-economic.  The list became longer and longer the more I thought about it, looking just for the top of the head ones. Very few of these could be considered altruistic displacements of evil men or "wrong-doers", they were primarily good old fashioned 'force of arms' with defined self interest and aggrandisement at their heart. Somehow honesty goes out the window.

• Alexander the Great's invasion of Asia.
• Caesar's invasion of Gaul, the Roman invasions of Britannia, Germania and elsewhere.
• The Goths and the Vandals return of the same compliment to Rome.
• The Viking invasions of Britain, France and Russia.
• The Norman invasion, of guess where- again. Is there nowhere else you'd like to try for a change?
• The Crusader invasions of the Holy land.
• The Eurasian invasions of Genghis Khan.
• The European invasion of the Americas.
• The British invasion of Zululand, as good (or bad) an example of wanton 'empire and colonialism' as you could wish to find.
• Napoleon's invasion of  Russia.
• The German invasion of France, then twenty years later, Poland et al.
• The American invasion of Vietnam.
•  The Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
• The Gulf wars.

I stopped there, knowing I have missed invasions that other people will find equally or even more compelling. The point is the list goes on and on. This is the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, virtually all of these are relegated to history: books, theses, professorships and academic study. In most of these examples, it was the ego of a single man that drove or instigated them. And the fear of 'crossing the leader' by their supporters permitted them to continue, on and on.

The resilience of the human spirit survives, love, empathy, courage; the madmen die or are killed, but at what a terrible cost.

I have  always 'enjoyed' the shivers of a good ghost story at Christmas. The dark nights, the creak of the stairs, flickering lightbulbs, well perhaps not the lightbulbs but you get the general idea. The primitive chill at the thought of the unknown close at hand. You will see my short stories have a leaning towards such stuff. 

This time last year I was wrestling with the final draft of "Legionaries of The Boar" getting it ready for launch on Amazon. I had no inkling it would lead to "Sword of The Boar" and now "Centurion of The Boar" which is currently being written.

This year is drawing to a close with the sort of book close to my heart. It is "The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions" by Tony Clunn. I finished it off last night. Tony Clunn is an ex British Army Major who has done significant work during the 1980s and early 90s to establish beyond reasonable doubt the site of the destruction of General Varus and his three legions in the Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. (Teutoberg is in northern Germany close to Osnabruck.)

Later, the Emperor Augustus was prone to say in moments of stress, "Varus, give me back my legions." - so they say.

For those not familiar with the story, a German auxiliary officer named Arminius helped lure Varus as he returned to winter quarters into an area where the normal Roman tactics of war were negated. Over a period of three or four days the German tribes routed them and cut them to pieces in forests and on narrow strips of ground between the Teutoberg Hills and a great swamp. Very few made it out.

What caught my imagination though was Clunn's  comments about the lingering aura of the place; the senses of sadness and sorrow it evoked. He wrote at the end of one poignant passage:

"For those who sense such things, the noise still rises across the centuries, from the mists of a time long gone by."

 What better way to get the 'shivers' than from something based on fact? 

(As I write this Centurion Velio Pinneius finds himself in a somewhat a sticky position too. Hopefully he will do better than Varus!)

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. 

The Grim Reality that was Rome.

We went to see the Colosseum during one of our first trips to Rome. We stood in the plebs queue for what seemed all day and finally made it inside. It was busy and it was hot, even in October. No surprise. And it was quite something to see.

The two things I remember most apart from the wait, are the small, delicate, gladiator graphitti carved into the stones and the modern timber cross to the Christian martyrs who died in there. To be honest once I saw the huge cross, which if I remember correctly stands just behind where the Emperors "box" was, it entirely changed my perception of the place. It's a pretty stark and effective reminder that you're standing in a butcher's yard.

I see the Colosseum's lower underground areas (that were so evocatively replicated and portrayed in the film "Gladiator") are being opened up to the public for tours. That's one tour that's not for me I'm afraid. In a mingling crowd of noisy tourists it will be a selfie nightmare; in a quiet evening, alone with the stones, (if such a thing is possible in Rome) it will be a sad and eerie place to be. Even after all these years, sometimes you can get too close to the details.