Dear Mr Cornwell, Every five years or so I re-read the entire Sharpe saga. At the moment I am doing it in parallel with Mark Urban’s “Rifles”, which is very interesting. The reason I am writing to you is, firstly to thank you for giving me so much pleasure, and secondly to make an appeal to you. As far as I am aware, there is no account of Richard Sharpe’s childhood. It has been alluded to and Sharpe has revisited the area, But the events themselves remain a mystery. A childhood in the stews of late 18th. century London must be a temptation for you. How about it? Yours Faithfully, Adrian Talbot.