I blame the navy. I had been given an eighth finished but rather lovely model of a sailing frigate, which I was sadly taking to a charity shop on the basis of there being absolutely no chance of me having the time to finish the job. They had a copy of Sharpe’s Trafalgar with its enticing cover. Since I hadn’t seen the (non-existent?) tv version, I naturally supported the charity and bought it. So help me, it might even have been a donkey charity. Needless to say, after halfway down page one I couldn’t put it down. However, I also spotted Sharpe’s Tiger in the chronology list near the front covered the seige of Seringapatam. It happens that General (later Lord) Harris was the great great (plus a few more greats) grandfather of two of my kids, so naturally I wanted to know more having heard bits but not a lot. Seems he was a decent bloke. Gave a copy to my son, but he still hasn’t read it…. foolish lad. Now, of course, I’ve read (and bought…) the lot (except the American civil war books) and have a question. What with your current affairs tv background, can you really manage to do your own research, or do you have a team of researchers, and how on earth do you manage to filter all the information you must get through? And still have time to write such gripping stuff… and probably have Christmas dinner. And possibly attend the occasional hall-burning re-enactment…. with kind regards, Jes Mainwaring