Dear Mr. Cornwell,

since I was a small boy I was interested in the (I thought at the time) glamour of 18th and 19th century soldiers – I remember wishing I could have been a marine serving with Captain Cook – perhaps saving him during his final voyage.  Your Sharpe series, read and re-read over the past 10 years have fleshed out for me so much the actual life of a British soldier at the time, stripped of the glamour.  Thank you.  My father and grandfather told me of my own family’s connection with the peninsular war, that my great great great grandfather served in Portugal, fell in love with a Portugese woman and married her, and that this embarrassed his family in England to the extent that he was “banished” to Halifax, NS where he took up farming.    I know that one of his sons was a mate on the Cutty Sark, and that his son was a businessman in Shanghai.  Unfortunately, my grandfather and father were both in Shanghai when the Japanese invaded and much of the family’s history was lost when they were interred (my father was 10 at the time).  With my grandfather dead and my father now having memory issues, is there any way I might find out what regiment my ancestor served in?  I have only his last name and what I’ve told you.  Just about to start your Starbuck series…and looking forward to meeting Sharpe’s son!  Thank you again for a decade of wonderful reading!

Jim Atkinson