I write mainly about Central Asia, in particular Mongolia. Why Mongolia? It’s a long story. The formal stuff is in Wikipedia. So here’s a short, informal version.

 

I am the child of Kentish villages, Rolvenden and Benenden. My mother was a founder member of Benenden School, which defined her life and her family’s. I’ve been escaping ever since. At 10 (in the early 1950s), I was a self-taught science geek. I knew the speed of light and how to spell diplodocus. Later, at the King’s School, Canterbury, I was good at German, thanks to an inspiring teacher. So: German (and French) at Oxford and a year in Vienna, which left me intrigued by the Iron Curtain, and what it hid. During a post-grad in the History of Science, I helped plan an expedition to Mongolia, because in the 1960s the far side of the Soviet Empire sounded exotic. To join the expedition I became the sole student of Mongolian at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The trip was a crazy idea, and never happened, but it left me yearning to go.