Cambridge

Everything had returned to normal in my life, apart from a desire to own a metal detector, which the family found amusing. Then as I sat on the bus driving from Cannes to the airport on an early spring day I found myself reading the Daily Telegraph, as you do, over the shoulder of the man sitting in front. Clearly you can see that this is not my newspaper, but none the less it caught my eye out of boredom.

There as the lead article on page two was a big picture of what were obviously Normans, with a big headline along the lines of new thinking about the Battle of Hastings. I could hardly believe it and had to wait till I got home before being able to locate a copy.

The story was less about the Battle of Hastings, but more about a remarkable young lady who worked in Cambridge on ancient texts. She had studied one of the manuscripts that had not fitted the traditional thinking of the Victorian era. Like others it had been trashed as unreliable. The article was effectively about the rediscovery of this manuscript called the Carmen of Hastingae Proelio, by Guy Bishop of Amiens.

This manuscript had a lot of new information in it and was written before 11th May 1068 - only two years after the battle. It was therefore a landmark rediscovery - as sometimes happens in the study of history. I therefore resolved to go to Cambridge to meet the author of the study of the Carmen, to discuss my theory that perhaps the Battle of Hastings took place somewhere other than the Battle Abbey site.

I eventually met the author of the work on the Carmen in her rooms at college and I realised from the first words how inadequate I was in comparison to her knowledge. I explained that I would like to read her paper and that my theory concerning the Battle of Hastings was based upon my observations, because I lived close by. She was very accommodating and told me where I would be able to get her work. She also encouraged me not to simply accept what I had been told at school, because the story was far more complicated than people generally think.

She told me to go away and read up on the subject, naming a few books that would get me started. It was the best advice I could have been given, because she was indirectly telling me that there may be something worth looking at. It appeared that there were inconsistencies between the various events of the landing and battle. She said to me that I should concentrate on the Norman Invasion side of the story, because there was a general consensus amongst historians that the Battle of Hastings took place where the Abbey was built. She did not know of any evidence to the contrary, but believed the Norman landing site was of interest to historians.

She agreed that the failure to find relics was not an indicator that the battle did not take place there, but also qualified that by saying that she wasn't an archaeologist. I left that meeting and in some ways it changed my life, because I discovered history in books. It was of course a very specialist area of history. I felt like the man who sits in the mastermind chair answering question on the Norman Invasion, September 29th 1066 to October 14th 1066. Books that repeated past historical myths were of no interest to me. I was only interested in documents written within 150 years of the battle, because this was the time scale I was told to look at. She said that I could only rely upon these and so I took her at her word. I wasn't interested in the theories that people offered to accommodate the discrepancies between one text and another - just the actual source text material related only to those six week.

Not many people do that for more than twenty years and probably only a few historians like the ones at our eminent Universities have read more on the subject. That gives me an excellent perspective on my specialist subject. It is none the less a great irritation to have to deal with armchair specialists who have never studied the Invasion, and believe they know better, because they hold a PhD on something completely different. Most foolishly they roll out the old understanding that the town of Pevensey was where the Norman landed, oblivious to the host of work that contradicts this. This new work will undoubtedly cause a few gaskets to blow in the town of Battle, but that cannot be helped.

The time will come soon when publishers will realise they have to update their old books, because the age of the Internet delivers the answers by the hits on the web site. That is why you will always find this web site on the first page of Google when you search "Norman Invasion". It has been there since the site was opened in 1996 and has had so many visitors over the years. Publishers who churn out the old story sit and wonder why their books on the Norman Invasion no longer sell - time to wise up I say when it comes to the Norman Invasion. I am as you can see rather opinionated about this subject. Given that it is now over twenty years hard labour I think I am entitled to my view and respect your right to disagree with conclusions. I am not in the business of stifling academic truth, but see this as a crusade to help protect battlefield sites like this that are constantly under threat. If we, as historians just sit by and don't make decisions we shall lose the sites to clever expert witnesses who work for road programs. If evidence is not 100% conclusive it does not mean that what we are looking for is not there. It means we need more time to be conclusive - a strategy that road builders do not understand. Perhaps we have to lose the correct Norman Invasion site for people to learn this lesson and implement legislation. I hope not.

I did what I was told to do and I don't expect that the lady in Cambridge probably ever expected to hear from me again. I did however get a huge compliment from her when I delivered the original thesis. Clearly not every word can be right and she understands, I believe, that history can never be delivered in a manner that is without differences of opinion. It is the consensus of peers that deliver historical proof of evidence and only then does the archaeology make sense. However history can also be over-ruled by archaeology and historians would be wise to remember that at times.

It was after these events I immersed myself in the reading and studying of the books necessary for me to research my subject. I confined myself to publishing the issues related to the Norman Invasion site, because that was the advice given to me. I rapidly found out that the world of history does not like to shake the boat. I suspect it is because almost everyone close to the subject of the Norman Invasion has a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

All the historians I spoke to had published books on the subject and it was not going to suit them to change or edit their books, because someone new on the block developed a new theory about the Battle of Hastings. Getting people in the area of Hastings or Pevensey to discuss the issue was absolutely impossible, because of their vested interests in tourism and to some extent an element of academic elitism.

Everyone considered it an assault on their national pride to even think that maybe the history books were wrong. I found myself working alone and prepared to do that as long as it took. If the Highways Agency, and now this more recent Public Inquiry were not involved with Wilting Farm, then I would still be doing it. However a time comes when it is right to publish and I feel that time has come.

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