I retired from an academic career in 2000, this coinciding with the award of a Churchill Fellowship to follow in the footsteps of Sir Winston Churchill as a young officer in the Indian subcontinent 1896-1899.

Why this choice? I had worked in Pakistan between 1964-67 for the British Council and travelled in northern and tribal areas where the influences of pre-independence British, especially military, were very strong. Numerous books have been written about this period of Churchill's life, but they mainly draw upon his own writings and few seemed to cover the clubs, cantonments, polo grounds and buildings he visited between 1896 and 1899. But he bookended these years with military adventures in Cuba and Sudan, which gave him not only military experiences but also opportunities to educate himself, start a literary career, and form political contacts with the assistance of his mother.

Since 2006 I have given numerous talks, in both English and Welsh, to a very wide range of organisations in south and west Wales – to many university history and politics departments at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels, Workers' Education Associations, Univerties of the Third Age, charitable and voluntary organisations.