hello. I have been a avid fan of your work for many years, and you have given me many, many hours of reading pleasure. I have a question about your main characters in your books. They all seem to share a common characteristic, in that they are all people who stick out like a sore thumb in their surrounding, for want of a better expression. Sharpe is a officer who has jumped up from the ranks, and doesn’t belong in that sense, Derfel is a Saxon but is brought up to be a Briton, Uhtred is similarly a Saxon who is more at ease with the Danes, and Starbuck is a northerner, fightin for the south. Do you purposely put your characters in this situation to add to the story, or is it a sub-conscious detail that has crept into your work? I know some authors draw on their own experiences, when writing characters, and with some just for the purpose of making a more interesting character.thanks. Richard Jones