About the Author
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Much of my life has been spent in pursuit of the ideal expressed by Cicero. As a History Teacher, my classroom was the stage on which the great events of the past were re-enacted, including the times of Gilles of Bec. A wardrobe of historical costumes, display cases of ancient artefacts and drawers full of model battlefields were the means by which my pupils and I let our imagination loose on the past. And on the playing fields, we re-created large scale ambitious ventures such as The Dam Buster Raid and the first tank battles of the Great War.
But where does imagination end and reality start? Without my years of reading, accumulating a library of academic work; without time spent in Records Offices, museums, university libraries, abbeys and monasteries; and without time on my hands and knees as a very amateur archaeologist, much of my writing would be guesswork and flimsy.
I have aspired to blend fact with fiction, with fact informing the fiction. For me, the life and times of Gilles of Bec are vivid and clear. I hope they are for you too.
T D Owen