Writer delves into the past to dig up amazing tales

3:24pm Monday 22nd January 2007

WRITER David Gibbins has history at his fingertips and his skill at weaving fact with fiction is the key to what makes his latest novel, Crusader Gold, such a gripping read.

The Canadian-born academic-turned-author has strong links with Herefordshire, with memories of visits to his grandparents' house in Bromyard maintaining a tight hold to this day.

‘Our past contains things that are truly incredible so you don’t need to go beyond those boundaries’

"They were both hugely important people in my life," he says. Tom and Martha Verrinder moved to Bromyard in the 1950s, where they ran a local fish and chip shop.

Grandmother Martha was a longstanding member of Saltmarsh and District WI, while grandfather Tom was a keen historian, often popping in to Hereford to research at the city's archives.

David's own life has taken a more high-flying and peripatetic path. Both his parents were leading luminaries at the University of Saskatchewan and his childhood years were split between Canada, New Zealand and England, where he attended Brockhampton Primary School for a year - overlooking the Downs.

Trips to Hereford Cathedral as a boy, and his first sightings of both its famous Mappa Mundi and Chained Library, made a big impression. Forty years later, the map provides the linchpin in the new novel.

"Growing up in Canada and New Zealand, I used to read about all this amazing history," he says. "It was great to see this stuff."

Having gained a degree in archaeology at Bristol and a PhD at Cambridge, David began a career in academia which spanned the next decade.

"I greatly enjoyed teaching but found it an increasingly frustrating job," he says. "I had always dreamed about writing archaeological thrillers but was so fanatical about archaeology that I had to go down the academic route."

He is also a world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities, diving in search of answers to historical conundrums. It is this fieldwork which will benefit from the fruits of his writing, once the novels start generating serious money.

With sales of 300,000 for his first book, Atlantis, and projections at outnumbering that for Crusader Gold, there seems little doubt that it's just a question of when.

"People talk about the Dan Brown phenomenon," he says. "My work coincided with a time when publishers think that what people want is a dose of fact with their fiction."

Strongly fact based, David endeavours to make his work as plausible as possible with much based on personal experience. "Everything I describe you can go and visit," he says.

"I like completely unexpected but plausible tangents. There are plenty of books about the Jewish treasures that take a more conventional and contemporary path.

"I became totally fascinated with the idea of the Vikings being in Constantinople and what might have been if Harald Hardrada had won the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

"There is nothing more extreme than the reality of archaeology and what is plausible. Our past contains things that are truly incredible so you don't need to go beyond those boundaries.

"There are many artefacts lost to time and lots more stories from the past to explore."

Published this month by Headline, signed copies of Crusader Gold are available from the Cathedral Shop (while stocks last) and Waterstone's in Hereford as well as all good bookshops, priced £6.99.

With an initial clue from the Mappa Mundi, the search for the greatest prize missing from the final conflict of the Crusades takes the reader from the fall of the Roman Empire to the last days of Nazi power, uncovering a trail more thrilling than anyone could have imagined.

David is busy at work on his third novel, The Last Gospel.

The Mappa Mundi and Chained Library Exhibition at Hereford Cathedral reopens for February after its annual period of cleaning and conservation. Between now and the end of the month, residents of Herefordshire, Shropshire and the Hereford Diocese can visit the exhibition for a discount price of £2 per head. The Mappa Mundi is open Monday to Saturday, 10am - 3.30pm (last admission).

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