Day seven of the ‘advent calendar’ focusing on some of the historical/genealogical sources that I used in the writing of Barefoot on the Cobbles.

I had chosen the character who was to be my vehicle for portraying the battlefields of the Great War. It turned out the the campaign in which he was involved was not one of the more famous ones, unless you are Australian. The Battles of Fromelles features prominently in the Australian narrative because there were huge numbers of ANZAC casualties. Most of the books are written from the Australian point of view and for a secondary account, I relied most heavily on Paul Cobb’s Fromelles 1916. I am not a miiltary historian; I was after impressions, not a minute by minute, accurate narration of the events. Nonetheless, I did need to have an overall impression of what occurred and this book provided me with that.

More information about Barefoot on the Cobbles can be found here. Copies are available at various events and at all my presentations. You can order from Blue Poppy Publishing or directly from me. Kindle editions are available for those in the UK, USA, Australasia and Canada.