Gavin Mortimer reveals the historical writer’s craft

Gavin Mortimer, the writer of bestselling books, visited our school last week and gave our Historians an insight into the life of the historical author. Gavin, who has published books on topics as diverse as the SAS, sporting heroes of the Great War and the race to be the first female to swim the channel, revealed the painstaking process behind the researching and writing of his tomes. For his book on the SAS he had to go through a lengthy and delicate approval process before the Regiment would give him permission to talk to their veterans. After this hurdle was negotiated it was a case of flying all over the world to interview former soldiers – many of whom had not told their story since the end of the Second World War.

Gavin also told of the discipline needed to trawl through archives in search of single references to names or events that interested him. Often entire days work would be for nothing as the research process would draw a blank. On other occasions gems would be unearthed, snippets that would ‘make’ an entire chapter or book. Chance can also push the writer into unexpected directions. Indeed, Mortimer’s latest project, the remarckable story of the first white woman into Tibet only cam eabout because the adventurer’s son was one of the SAS soldiers that Gavin was looking into for his previous project.

Kindly, Gaving has agreed to allow some of our pupils to help him research this latest book. I’ll update the progress of our endeavours here as developments occur.