Dear Bernard,

Your Saxon Series lights up my imagination. In fact, I went to study Medieval History at Cambridge and I don’t think I would have done so were it not for these books. I really mean that. When I was studying the Anglo-Saxons and finding morale low, I would simply read one of your books to fire up my enthusiasm again!

Moreover, while the Uchtred in the series, as far as I can tell, doesn’t relate exactly to one particular Uchtred – I love the way you’ve used one character to span numerous influential turning points in history – creating one continuous and digestible narrative. Perfect.

It also seems we are related. My family, the Swintons of that Ilk are the direct decendants of the Bernician Line and we still live in Swinton in Berwickshire – just a little drive from Bamburgh. http://www.swintonfamilysociety.org/charts.html – you may find Chart 1C of interest – you can see that we pop up on Sheet 3. It would be very interesting to find out how you link into all of this. It is, after all, a fascinating period of history.

Enough rambling – I am settling down to The Pagan Lord as we speak and I wanted to just make contact to thank you for inspiring my imagination and to express my delight at our shared historical past.

Best Wishes

Harry Swinton