Trevor Bloom
My father was in the army and I grew up on army bases in the UK, Germany and the Far East. I adored historical fiction and read avidly, especially Rudyard Kipling, Henry Treece, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Alfred Duggan and my mother’s Jean Plaidy books. I also devoured books on military history and developed a keen interest in archaeology. I can still remember the thrill of reading about Vespasian’s siege of Maiden Castle in 43 AD and how archaeologists had discovered the skeleton of a British tribal defender with a Roman ballista bolt lodged in his spine.
At university I studied law but loathed it and knew I could never become a lawyer. I started writing an historical novel about the Saxon adventus while I tried to work out what I wanted to do with my life. One day I saw an ad for a trainee copywriter. I applied, got the job, put the manuscript away in a drawer and forgot about it. I loved the buzz of advertising and life as a copywriter proved excellent experience for a writing career.
I subsequently became a marketing consultant working on projects for companies like Coca Cola, British Telecom, Gillette and Marks & Spencer. This was followed by a stint in financial services. Meanwhile I had married Emma and settled down. I ran my own business for a while and worked as a volunteer for Save the Children. In 2004 I took a Masters in International Politics, writing my thesis on the post-war US occupation of Japan.
It was about this time that I began to write again: mostly children’s stories, thrillers and short stories. I decided that what I really wanted to do was write about the Roman era, particularly the end of empire. A glutton for punishment, I took another Masters, this time in Creative Writing, and a year later my first novel, The Half-Slave, was accepted for publication by Bookline & Thinker.