Mr Cornwell,

I’ve just finished the entire Sharpe series. They were brilliant!

I’m proud to say I’m the son of a retired British Army Officer. Like Sharpe my Dad joined the army not as an officer, but made it through the ranks by hard hard work.

He joined the Army in the late 60’s as a radio operator on tanks in the 15th/19th Kings Royal Hussars, before transferring to the Royal Engineers in the mid-80’s as the Hussars had been posted back out of the UK and I was at the age where i would have had to have gone to boarding school and my parents didn’t us separated.

He went on to run a hugely successful RE Airfield Damage Repair Squadron, before retiring in the late 90’s

Throughout my childhood I’d visit the Army buildings and see these huge paintings depicting battles in far off lands and always wonder what the story was behind them. But I always found the true stories a bit too dry  – Your novels changed that.

I’d read them on my Kindle and on my phone, and was able to click on links and immediately search historical pages that added images and accounts of the real events adding so much to their telling, and in the process giving me a history lesson.

Being able to bring these events to life through the adventures of Sharpe has provided me a way in to understanding and learning so much about the history of the British Army of the Napoleonic era.

In fact I’ve really learnt so much that when I visited the Waterloo display at the Leeds Armoury with my girlfriend I was able to give an account of the battle using their model they’d built from knowledge I’d learnt and been inspired to learn from reading your books So a huge, thanks!

But I do have something that I have been thinking about after finishing the final Sharpe novel; after all that Sharpe did for Wellesley, and all that Wellesley went onto to do after the Napoleonic wars, do you really think that Wellesley had no more use for Sharpe and his special set of skills?

I’m sure somewhere in the history books there’s something that would inspire a secret covert mission for Sharpie.

I know you’re off telling other stories now, which I’m going to read as Dad is an avid fan of the Starbuck Chronicles, but I’m really curious to see if Sharpe was called upon once again by his old boss, or spent the rest of his days in France

Anyway,

Kindest Regards

Tony Kennedy