I owe a special debt to Terry Coleman. When I started out as a freelance writer, I was writing comedy, but my second book bombed. My agent, Murray Pollinger, suggested a change of direction and asked me what was the book I had read recently that I wished I had written, to which I answered Coleman’s The Railway Navvies.
He suggested I should try to write something similar, and the result was The Canal Builders, published in 1972 and now in its fifth edition. I have been writing about the history of technology and transport ever since – thanks to Coleman’s inspiring book.
