Fig.1 Against the British Library opposite St.Pancras International .

I love to travel, not just on holiday with friends and family, but alone. Maybe this happens to you too, but I always find travel, especially new trips and destinations, is a catalyst to reflection.

I’m on the earliest train out of Lewes, East Sussex to Birmingham (5:20). I get a lot done.

If I have a place where I am most creative and productive this is it. How does it open the mind? All I’m doing is reading a book about boy soldiers in the First World War while revising a hefty piece of fiction centred on this period. ‘Angel of the North’ is the story of an amazing girl and woman who experiences the first war like no other … ‘

Anyway, on the basis that I have always been advised that research helps solve all fiction writing problems I am taking this as literally as is possible and start today as an MA student of First World War studies at the University of Birmingham.

Will I as a result ‘research the subject until I hear its people speak?’ This is what the historian E R Elton said.