Not been on this forum for a while. Many thanks for the kind comments about the books.
Many people have asked me about doing Hurricane/Mossie etc etc.- the simple, increasingly sad fact is that my books are all based around interviews with the WW2 veterans themselves - For "Spitfire" and "Lancaster" I amassed 100s of hours of personal testimony, amounting to millions of words which distilled down to a 140,000 word book.
Unfortunately, this means that "Lancaster" will be my last book on WW2 aircraft for the moment as there are not the numbers of surviving veterans available to tell their stories.
I am indeed doing "Tornado" next - telling the story of the Tornado in the First Gulf War in 1991. It has been an incredible experience talking to my old friends and colleagues who flew those ops; especially as I wasn't there for most of it!

Well said OJ72, on both points

Glad to hear you are well John. You won't remember me by name but I was a "Sooty" on XV when you were serving on that sadly departed squadron and I still remember that morning at Muharraq when you and JP didn't come back. Don't want to embarrass you but you were always popular with the Erks, possibly because that's where you came from. I also just finished reading your "Spitfire" book last month. I admit that it took a while to get to grips with the format and to remember all the characters that were introduced but I got there in the end and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure you would ever have cut it at McDonalds :)

Cheers - that's much appreciated (I would have been fab selling burgers & fries!) - I have DM'd you about the Gulf.

The two latest books are perhaps not entirely my cup of tea, but then I don't think I'm really the target market!

I am, however, absolutely in awe of the technique employed in both Spitfire and Lancaster, and offer my unqualified congratulations on a really professional job. Spitfire is a really skilfully written book and shows JN to be a really gifted story-teller - I'm not that far into Lanc yet, but I daresay I will enjoy it!

I wish my old Dad was still with us - he flew Yorks after the War, and logged a lot of time in the Lanc and Lincoln at the RAE after that, and had a real soft spot for the Lanc. His log books include all of the big four 4-engined bombers - Lanc, Halifax, B-17 and B-24, and he never flew a normal, standard bomber sortie in any of them. I'd be fascinated in what he would have made of the latest book.

Good luck with Tornado, JN!

Thanks for the message Jack - jolly kind of you.

You make a perfectly valid point. My books aren't really aimed at people who have immersed themselves in the subject for many years. I am trying to bring the subject to a new audience.
A few 'experts' have pointed out that both Spitfire and Lancaster haven't dealt fully with either a specific subject (eg Dambusters) or covered the development and engineering of the aircraft itself. This is deliberate on my part. For instance; I wrote extensively about 617 Sqn in a previous book so decided not to deal with it again.

It is a very easy criticism to make which basically says: "you haven't written your [bestselling] book the way I would have recommended". It is a perfectly reasonable point to make, but we are seeing more of this type of attitude these days which intimates, "I disagree with your viewpoint, ergo you must be wrong".

But more importantly, there are many 1000s of previous (excellent) books which have already covered development/engineering/weaponry etc. of Lancaster/Spitfire - to do so again would simply have attracted the reverse criticism that I was writing about already well-told, well-covered material.

My books are what might be called "oral history" - they tell the story through the words of those who were there. I aim at an audience which would not normally pick up a more 'dry' book on the subject. I am led to understand that "Lancaster" might well be at number 2 in the Sunday Times bestseller list this weekend; so hopefully my aim has been a bit more accurate this time.....!
Thanks to all who have bought, and especially enjoyed the books
Best wishes to all; stay safe and well.
JN

I'm glad you don't write what I do, there's too much competition already!

I'm very glad that you write what you do write. I was chatting with Rowland White the other day and we concluded that you are a 'gateway drug' - doing today what Partworks did in years gone by - getting the merely interested 'addicted' to aviation, and turning some of them into the kind of geeks who read my stuff.

You also offer some useful examples on how to write for a modern audience, and not for a largely disappeared sect who used to worship at the altar of Bill Gunston and Bob Dorr.

Which reminded me of a Nimrod sortie to Gibraltar where a fast jet member of the TWMR was joining the flight as pax. On leaving operations he said to one of the crew, "Sergeant, those are my bags." To which the crew member answered, "Righto, sir."

On arrival in Gib, the jet jockey enquired as to the location of his bags.

"In Ops at St. Mawgan the last time you pointed them out to me, sir." Was the reply.

Regarding "bags", another tale of a Gp Capt paxing to BAH courtesy of 10 sqn. Very similar, as Sir alights from crew transport mentions to the driver "Those are my bags". On arrival at BAH, Sir cannot find his luggage anywhere. By now Sir getting a tadge uptight to put it very politely, was asked "where did you put your bags after leaving the crew bus?" Embarrassed Sir replies rather sheepishly "I did not touch them but told the driver which bags were mine". No need to guess where Sir's bags were, still on said crew transport. Sir rather subdued but seething for the remainer of trip. Moral of this, Put your Own bags on Aircraft!

As a wise man once said to me: "A fool and his bags are soon parted!"