Making History

Coined the phrase

scraped the gilt off the gingerbread

Get your head round that one. It means that it is my job to tell you the true story of what never happened. Perhaps that’s a definition of fiction.

History is my passion, my calling. Or, to be more painfully truthful, it is my field of least incompetence.

I found I could be most marvellous dispassionate with history, where everyone, by definition, is truly dead.

Or, to be more painfully truthful, it is my field of least incompetence.