In his own words:
‘A reflective individual made more so in adolescence by a major car crash involving my parents. My father had a stroke a year later and never spoke again, save to swear; or walk, save to hobble. My mother nursed him for to years, until he died; then she contracted motor neurone disease and died shortly afterwards. Throughout was a seemingly endless civil action for damages. When the settlement cheque came through it was co-extensive with the debts that had accrued. Oddly enough, this was the area of law to which I eventually turned.
I grew up in damp southeast Lancashire, scalding hot Queensland, and temperate Vancouver Island: three different environments and cultures with nothing to bind them together. By the age of eighteen I had enjoyed a varied existence making me a wanderer, intellectually and spiritually. Perhaps that is why I loved the stories of Russian pilgrims walking hundreds of miles over the steppes to tiny shrines, eschewing vodka and devouring scripture. And with a trace of that mystical spirit of adventure I joined religious life. I left 5 years later, to my surprise, on the same pilgrim route. To ask me why is to ask for part of the stuff from which my future books will spring. And between their covers is where the answer will lie.
I worked with homeless people - which was a deeply influential experience - and then trained for the Bar - later specialising in personal injury law. I had only just begun to shape my practice when I fell ill with cancer. With sudden uninvited acuity I realised that life is a single chance; no second goes; and from that moment an insidious restlessness dismantled what might have been a fruitful professional life. In the end I knew I had to write, for reasons I could not fathom, and took six months off to devote myself to doing it. Within days I realised that this was what I had always wanted to do - since I was a child when, aged nine, I had written my first book, The Origins of the First World War, with illustrations by the author.’
In a sort of argument with providence, I applied to be a Deputy District Judge at the same time as I began preparing my novel. If appointed I knew I would probably never finish the book. So by applying I was setting up a road that diverged in two: the law in one direction, and writing the other. To my surprise, I was called for an interview, but was duly knocked back: I remain profoundly grateful to the Lord Chancellor’s Department for their uncharacteristic perspicacity. From then on the road to my future, whatever it might be, was open and wide, and I entered it with a lightness of step that eventually led to my first novel - The Sixth Lamentation’.