Time to stop the industrialisation of our landscape

I was going to do my first blog of 2013 on some form of writing subject, but after reading this I've decided to have a short rant on a subject close to my heart: wind farms.

I think they're intrusive, expensive, unproven and, in Scotland at least, their unstoppable spread is driven by one man's mania to reach an arbitrary, self-imposed and unreachable target. The 'facts' and figures given out by the renewables lobby and the Scottish government are mostly questionable and always exaggerated. When I checked out an application for a ten turbine wind farm in the Borders against a similar sized project in the United States, I found that the number of full-time permanent jobs that the Scottish site was going to create was allegedly ten times higher, which is ridiculous.

The rules have been bent out of shape to suit the developers, and when local authorities try to stand up against them, the applications they turn down are bulldozed through by the government. The opinions of the local people who will have to live with them are disregarded to an extent that is close to dictatorial. Communities which do welcome wind farms, and I admit there are a few, often do so because they're offered 'community grants' or some other form of cash incentive by the developers. In the real world these are known as bribes. The only people who really benefit are greedy landowners.

No-one knows how many turbines will be allowed before someone says 'enough', but between Stirling and the border at Carlisle there are currently a dozen wind farms visible from the road, some of them enormous, with plans for several more. Developers often start by siting only a few turbines, arguing that they won't intrude on the landscape, but as soon as the infrastructure for a turbine is in place the reasons for refusing further towers no longer exist. The landscape is already blighted, the pylons linking to the national grid are a reality, 'it's only fair to let us capitalise on our investment'.

A constant supply of clean, renewable energy is a laudable aim. I'm all for offshore windfarms, as long as I don't have to subsidise them. I like the idea of tidal and wave power. I just think what's happening now is so obviously wrong that we need a moratorium on further applications. The industrialisation of the landscape I love is too high a price to pay for something that's little more than a ruinous high stakes gamble.

A year in the life ...

It's time for the annual Jackson Enterprises end of term report. 2012 was a great year for me in a lot of ways. I published two novels and wrote two others. Avenger of Rome has probably had the best reviews of any of my books so far and I don't think there's any doubt that it's the best historical novel I've written. The Isis Covenant (James Douglas) also received a lot of praise and was undoubtedly a step on from The Doomsday Testament. If that wasn't enough I signed a contract to write another five books for Transworld, for which huge thanks to my former editor Simon Thorogood, whose faith in my ability changed my life.

On the events front, I was given a fantastic welcome at History in the Court and the Historical Novel Society conference in London and appeared on panels, with, among others, the wonderful Bernard Cornwell. I've done readings and panels all over Scotland and met some wonderful people.

The only downside was the cancellation of the Festival of History at Kelmarsh because of the flooding, but hopefully we can make up for that this year.

Going back twelve months, 2012 looked challenging, but I was confident things would work out. 2013 is going to be challenging for slightly different reasons. I have two books to edit - Sword of Rome and The Excalibur Codex, which will be out in the summer - two books to write from scratch, beginning in January, and I'm working on a rewrite of another at the moment which will hopefully be published next year. Oh, and I plan to put The Emperor's Elephant - the final part of the Rufus trilogy - out on e-book. It's also time to think about trying to get my characters on the big screen. I think Hero of Rome is probably the most filmable of my books. A story of doomed love, loyalty, courage, comradeship and sacrifice set against the background of a bloody insurrection. Great characters. Battles on an epic scale, but in a compact, almost claustrophobic setting, and the final heroic last stand. Rome's Alamo. If you have any contacts in Hollywood ...

A Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all my readers!

Foreign affairs are improving

One thing I suspect every writer enjoys is when the padded parcel drops through the letterbox with the latest foreign edition. It's always great to see the different designs the publishers come up with and you can't help laughing at being reincarnated as Daglas Dzekson.

Caligula has been published in twelve languages (I think) including Italian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian,  Serbian, Romanian, Portuguese and Russian. For a while in 2008 I was getting a new foreign deal every couple of weeks. In monetary terms they weren't huge, but it was flattering and exciting to realise that so many people in different countries would be reading the book.

Naturally, when Claudius came out I expected the same, but the world had changed, publishers weren't taking any chances and the foreign deals more or less dried up for a year or two, though they seem to be reviving now.

The thing about them is you enjoy the moment and then forget them.

But this week I received a lovely e-mail from a Spanish gentleman saying how much he'd enjoyed Bestiarius - the Spanish edition of Caligula, published by Ediciones B of Barcelona - and by complete coincidence I discovered a fantastic Spanish review of the book. The reviewer was amazed to have stumbled on this great unknown author and exhorted the publisher to get out there and promote the book. Exactly what you want to hear!

A great Italian edition of Claudius

So when the latest royalty statement arrived I was very chuffed to see that Bestiarius is the first of my foreign publications to make a profit (albeit a modest one), and I'm hoping that the good senors and senoritas at Ediciones B realise that there's money to be made from the author's other four (and by common consent even better) historical novels. Onwards and upwards.

PS Some of you may have seen my message that I was abandoning the blog because Google had locked me out. Fortunately, my friend and webmeister Ewan has contacts in high places and the problem was resolved.

Son of a gun! Solving a 70 year old mystery

I know I'm always banging on about my home town of Jedburgh, or Jethart, as tis known by the locals, but I was down visiting on Tuesday and I have a slightly odd story that I think illustrates the true meaning of belonging.

The occasion was a meeting of the local Probus club, which is a monthly gathering of about thirty gentlemen of retiral age. They meet to discuss an eclectic range of subjects, but much of the material is about the history of the town, the Borders, and its environs. I met lots of people I knew and saw lots of faces I should have been able to put names to.

I was there to talk about books and Romans, but I strayed a bit - as you do - and was telling a few tales about growing up in the early sixties and the adventures we used to have. I suddenly remembered an occasion when I was about 10 and my friend, Brian Pringle, and I, were paddling in the Jed at the bottom of Canongate, not far from the Royal Hotel where the meeting took place.

We were probably guddling for trout, as you did, but when I was rooting around in the stones I found something much more interesting. The object in question was a rather rusty, but perfectly recognisable (I was interested in war stuff) Luger automatic pistol, with an Afrika Korps palm tree and swastika symbol on the chequered butt. For a ten-year-old whose idea of heaven was the Victor comic (surely you remember Matt Braddock VC?) dropping through the letter box, it was the find of a lifetime (I looked for a similar gun on the internet and it must have been awfully rare). To keep or not to keep? Oh, the temptation. Thankfully common sense prevailed and we took it to the police station, and it was never seen again.

Who knows, Rommel might have
carried one just like it

But the find aroused lots of questions. How had it got there? Who had it belonged to? How did they get it. The answers were: probably some Jethart lad who served in the Eighth Army and either took it off an officer prisoner or a body, brought it home, eventually realised it was a bit dangerous to have and chucked it where he thought it would never be found.

Anyway, I regaled them with the tale, and then went on to the other things I was there to talk about, had a great Q & A session and was just wrapping up when one of the gents at the far end, Alan 'Potty' Porterfield, piped up. 'This isn't a question', he says, 'but an answer to something you brought up earlier. Back in the day, I was the only laddie in Jethart who played British and Jerries with a genuine Luger. It belonged to my uncle Wattie Turnbull who brought it back from the war. When I was a bit older I asked him what he'd done with it. "I chucked it in the Jed" he says. So now I know what happened to the Luger and you know where it came from.'

And there you have it. A mystery that goes back to the battle of El Alamein - fought from the 23 October to 4 November, 1942 - and the Desert Rats, then links the fifties and the sixties, is finally solved seventy years later. Spooky, eh? 

The lost palace

I've passed the field a few hundred times. It slopes down to the road, between the village of Ancrum and the River Ale, just a couple of hundred yards from a cliff with caves where the local residents once sought refuge during the troubled times of the Wars of Independence. There's nothing remarkable about it, but I'd seen people with metal detectors or field walking a couple of times, so I had an idea there'd been something there once, perhaps an Iron Age settlement or Neolithic Fort.

But when we were visiting on Saturday I noticed the unmistakeable signs of an archeological dig, so I put on my wellies and took a walk over to discover that the diggers had just uncovered one of the most important ecclesiastical sites in Medieval Scotland, a long lost Bishop's Palace. Dr Chris Bowles, who led the investigation, told me that the Palace had been built in the 12th Century, and was in use for most of the 13th. It had been built by a Bishop of Glasgow, and one Bishop de Bondington, responsible for founding Glasgow Cathedral, had actually died there after dictating his last writ to the Pope.

The dig at Ancrum has fascinated local people

To put the importance of the site in perspective, you have to be aware that the palace was built at a time of enormous significance in Scotland's history. King David I, a pious and devout ruler, endowed the four great Border Abbeys around that time, handing over vast swathes of land. Jedburgh Abbey just four miles away was founded in 1138 by the king and Bishop John of Glasgow, so there is likely to be a direct correlation between the two. Perhaps it was where the Bishop's representatives lived while they oversaw the building work of the magnificent Augustinian church, which took over a hundred years to construct.

It was unfortunate to be completed at a time when relations between England and Scotland began to deteriorate, and when the Abbey suffered from the various incursions - it was burned five times - the Bishop's Palace would have suffered with it. The end probably came in the mid 16th century with Henry VIII's Rough Wooing of Scotland when Sir Ralph Evers triumphantly wrote to his king that he had burned 'seven monasteries, sixteen castles, five market towns, two hundred and forty villages and three hospitals', and  had followed Henry's instructions to put man woman and child to the sword to the letter. Jedburgh Abbey never recovered and the power of the Bishops was ended.

Part of a Medieval window with beading and slots for bars

You can see the foundations of a massive wall

The limited archeological dig has uncovered portions of wall that give some hint of the massive scale of the structure and it sent a shiver down my spine to be able to look on tangible evidence of its existence and significance nine hundred years after it was built. They've also come across various finds associated with the period. The one that fascinated me most was a lead musket ball, one of a number found in this field. By the time it was fired, the Bishops of Glasgow were long gone, but it points to another time of turbulence, probably in the 18th century, perhaps a long forgotten skirmish in the '45, when Bonnie Prince Charlie's army passed this way. Who knows what other stories it has to tell ...

A celebration of writers and writing

Two images stick in my mind as the Saturday night banquet at the Historical Novel Society came to a climax (I use the word advisedly). The first was Bernard Cornwell's Flashman-like leer as he read the male part of a steamy sex scene written by Gillian Bagwell and narrated by Diana Gabaldon. The second was the look of pure joy on HNS founder Richard Lee's face when he realised the gift handed over by peerless conference organiser Jenny Barden was a beautiful sword made of Toledo steel.

Those two moments summed up the whole weekend for me. Wholehearted commitment from everyone from the biggest names to the complete unknown, and the pleasure of being part of a gathering of hundreds of people with the same interests, passions and inspiration. From the opening speech by best-selling novelist Philipa Gregory, an absolute tour de force on the art of historical fiction, to the fascinating peroration on the roots of the genre by Margaret George that kept everyone spellbound for close to an hour, the conference was a celebration of all that's good about writers and writing.

The two events I spoke at were characterised by the eloquence and passion of my fellow panelists and the enthusiasm of the audiences, whether it was the thirty who attended a workshop on making fight scenes authentic, with the aforementioned Mr C, Angus Donald and Russ Whitfield, or the three hundred who watched us tiptoe our way in tackety boots through the minefield of Brawn versus Heart, a debate on the alternative merits of romantic as opposed to adventure fiction (with special thanks to Chris CW Gortner for his handling of a tough panel). I was able to attend another three or four events and every one was unique.

I met lots of old friends, and many new ones, chatting about books, book people, and giving advice to fellow writers about getting published. I'm only sorry I didn't have time to attend the Sunday sessions, and my only regret was that I didn't get the chance to answer the question about why, as writers, we concentrate on extraordinary people rather than ordinary ones. Put simply, ordinary people aren't as interesting. If an ordinary person strays into one of my books I send in a troop of cavalry to burn down their village.

On the march again

I've just this very minute sent the first draft of Sword of Rome, the fourth Gaius Valerius Verrens adventure, to my new editor Simon. It takes Valerius into the opening phase of The Year of the Four Emperors, a fascinating period of Roman history when the Empire is devastated by civil war and neutrality is not an option.

Aulus Vitellius would surprise everybody

When it opens, Nero is still on the throne, but every hand is raised again him. In the wings waits Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, a man with the bloodlines and ambition to be Emperor, but none of qualities that would make him a good one. At Galba's side rides the equally ambitious Marcus Salvius Otho. Formerly Nero's favourite and a man who traded his wife for advancement, Otho is certain he'll be appointed the elderly Galba's heir, thus opening the path to the throne in a few years' time.

But the fat man who will surprise them all is also waiting for the call from Galba. When Aulus Vitellius reaches his province of Germania Inferior it will set off a chain reaction that threatens to consume a hundred thousand lives.

The characters are in place, the scene is set for a tragedy of epic proportions, and only one man can stop it happening.

Valerius conspires in the death of one Emperor, survives the fall of another, only to be sent on a virtual suicide mission by a third. On the way he'll be stalked by an implacable enemy, faces an impossible dilemma, and is forced to choose between love, honour and duty.

Now, I have an event with the master himself, Mr Bernard Cornwell, to prepare for in London at the weekend. After that it's back to The Excalibur Codex and Nazis, Islamic terrorists, rogue spies and a deranged US politician with a guilty secret.

Life's never dull!