On 8th December 2021 it is the 80th anniversary of the the Battle of Hong Kong (HK80), the point of Britain’s entry into the Pacific War. To commemorate the day I have written a blog post for the Researching FEPOW History Group website. Please click the link and have a read.

You may remember that a wee while ago I appeared on BBCR4’s Saturday Live show. A couple of weeks ago I received an email via the website from a lady called Sarah, saying she’d heard my interview and was desperate for a few copies of my book but couldn’t find any. Unfortunately she hadn’t noticed the opportunity to buy a copy that appears on the sidebar on the right of the page. Anyway, I emailed back, asking how many she wanted and offering to put some copies in the post. I didn’t hear anything for a couple of days and, as she has an unusual surname, I thought I’d look her up to see if I could find an address for her. To my surprise she lives about ten minutes walk from my house! I went to find it but couldn’t find the correct house name. I knocked on a likely looking door:

‘Is this the White House?’ I asked

‘Yes’ said a surprised looking man in his 70s

‘Are you Mr X?’

‘I might be…’ I could see him wondering who on earth I might be and not coming to any happy conclusions.

‘Is your wife called Sarah?’ Now he was intrigued.

‘Is she looking for some copies of this book?’

‘Oh! Come in, come in.’ We had a nice chat and Sarah called me later to say it was the most extraordinary coincidence of their lives. Another happy customer.

I have recently taken part in #HistoryWritersDay on Twitter which generated some interest. It was the brainchild of @books2cover and he managed to get 250 writers/publishers involved to create a bit of a splash. Great idea and one that I hope will be repeated.