Cover Reveal: Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace
My publisher, Pen & Sword Books, have recently released the cover design for my new book, now titled Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace. Read all about it here.
Latest Posts
On This Day — 30 March 1942
Eighty-two years ago today, on 30 March 1942, Britain launched a desperate attempt. to destroy Nazi Germany’s largest battleship, the Tirpitz. The Allies’ fortunes were at a low ebb at that point in the war, and the Tirpitz, anchored near Trondheim, Norway, posed an immediate threat to Murmansk-bound convoys carrying aid to Soviet Russia. The…
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On This Day — 21 March 1974
FIFTY YEARS AGO ON THIS DAY – 21 March 2024 Fifty years ago today the Government of Canada established the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. Its purpose was to hold hearings and report on the social, environmental and economic impact of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline, and to recommend terms and conditions that should govern…
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On Snowshoeing
One of the consequences of Covid has been rediscovering the joys of snowshoeing. While isolated on a hundred acres of bush in eastern Ontario, with three kilometers of trails, there was never a boring day in winter, whatever the weather. And so it continues. While snowshoeing I read the news: what animals are moving about…
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Joey Jacobson’s War Is Now An Audio Book!
My book, Joey Jacobson’s War, has just been released as an audio-book, read by Canadian actor Braden Wright. I can say without being immodest that it makes for great listening – after all it is his voice, I just supplied the words. It’s a novel experience for me to hear my writing read by a…
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Missing Indigenous Children
When I lived in a small community in the Western Arctic in the 1960s, I heard speculation, in hushed tones, of children buried in the mission school yard in Aklavik. I did not discount what I was being told, but as a young man from a relatively privileged and untroubled background, I was mystified about…
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Peter Usher has started a new book
William Henry Nelson, DFC – A Canadian in the Royal Air Force Like many young Canadians in the 1930s, William Henry Nelson wanted to fly. Unlike all but a few, he fulfilled his ambition beyond imagining, becoming a decorated Royal Air Force bomber pilot early in the Second World War, then becoming an ace…
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An Open Letter to Don Cherry
Dear Don, I watched the clip of your comment directed to “you people” on Hockey Night in Canada. Even if I don’t always like what you have to say, you’ve been a Canadian fixture for a long time, and I like that. And how could I not have at least grudging respect for the guy…
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Remembrance Sunday in England, 10 November 2019
Went to the service in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, as we do each year. The impact of this astonishing space, and what goes on in it between 11 and 12 on Remembrance Sunday, does not diminish on me over time. “A British Subject I was born,” with all the good and the not so good…
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Writing Joey Jacobson’s War
Joey Jacobson was a personable, athletic, and ambitious young man from upper class Westmount. He was the only Jew on McGill’s 1938 intercollegiate champion football team. He volunteered for the air force in the spring of 1940, and he was buried in Europe before his 24thbirthday – one of nearly 10,000 Canadians who died in the…
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