Dear Bernard Cornwell

By amazing coincidence, as an amateur student of psychological — ‘character is fate’ — astrology, I was looking up your DoB on Wikipedia and discovered that it is today. (23 February).

Though I’m a Quaker and pacifist, I’m getting a lot of history out of your books. Though I’ve seen the Sharpe TV series, the first of your books that I read was ‘Gallows Thief’ via a charity books table at Hereford’s largest Co-op shop. (I’ve also bought two of your ‘Making of England’ series books from that table, but am putting those on hold till I’ve got further with Sharpe.) Since then, I’m progressing in historical sequence through the Sharpe series — currently reading Sharpe’s Fortress.

So, for now, I wish you a Joyous Personal New Year from Hereford, England.

Alan Wheatley