Chrome Audio is run by the energetic and enthusiastic Catriona Oliphant, who took the idea of Stranger in the House and turned it into an Audio Book plus, with interviews with some of my ‘ladies’. Since then she has produced an audio book of The Colonel of Tamarkan, read perfectly by Anton Lesser. Catriona has great ideas for the future of radio listening so her website is worth tracking.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission hosts a remarkably easy to use website which has the casualty database for all the servicemen and women who died in the two world wars and who are commemorated in the CWGC cemeteries and on their memorials.

The Imperial War Museum holds wonderful collections of all kinds and I am a regular visitor to the Department of Documents. The IWM also has the most outstanding collection of British 20th Century painting and is well worth a visit for that alone.

Imperial War Museum North in Manchester is housed in the imposing building on Trafford Wharf by the American architect Daniel Liebeskind. It hosts temporary exhibitions as well as its permanent display and has a great schools’ outreach programme.

The Mountain Heritage Trust is the only mountaineering organisation I am directly involved with (as Vice Chair). We exist as part of the British Mountaineering Council to promote the understanding of our British climbing and mountain heritage.

Researching FEPOW History. Since I wrote The Colonel of Tamarkan I have worked with this small group of researchers who seek to bring to the fore the stories of the prisoners of the Japanese in the Second World War.

The mountain film festivals are a fabulous opportunity for climbers, mountaineers, hikers and those simply interested in the stories to meet up and share films, talks and ‘fishermen’s tales’. I have been involved in the Kendal Mountain Film festival as a judge, lecturer, presenter and chair for nearly a decade and it is always a great event.

Fletcher Associates. Francine Fletcher deals with all matters to do with talks and television on my behalf.

The Society of Authors is the non-profit making professional body that protects the rights and furthers the interest of authors. We really need them.

Writers in Oxford is a small group set up in Oxford as an offshoot of the Society of Authors.

Janie Hampton is a fellow author in Oxford who has the same scratch and sniff approach to research as I do.

Theresa Breslin writes children’s fiction but her research methods are meticulous and I admire her work a great deal.

Stephanie Hess is an amateur historian who has taken responsibility for her grandfather’s papers and wartime memoir very seriously and I think her website is a testimony to loyalty and determination.