Martin Wall – författare

In this profoundly personal journey through British history, Martin Wall traces the influence of Magic and Myth from the earliest times to the present day. Our abiding myths have endured since before the time of the Druids, reaching their apotheosis in the Arthurian tales and the Glastonbury legends, stories which retain their dynamism and imaginative power. These mythic templates, constantly reinvented, provided a legitimating mission for the British Empire, which mediated them to a worldwide audience. Our spiritual inheritance is shot through with magic.But this book takes in more obscure mysteries, such as ‘Who put Bella in the Wych-Elm?’, a localised ‘tribe of witches’, and a host of extraordinary characters like Doctor John Dee, William Blake, and the notorious Aleister Crowley. In this fascinating account of the occult origins of British culture the author depicts our island story as an outworking of magical destiny – a challenge to us to create our own imaginative system.

For centuries, the Celtic peoples of Britain stood fast against invasion and oppression. Theirs is a fascinating and exciting story that includes the deeds of some of the most tenacious and heroic leaders in history – from Caratacus and Boudicca to William Wallace, Owain Glyndwr and the legendary King Arthur. What was it that gave first the Britons, and then the Welsh, this fanatical will to hold out against overwhelming odds through so many centuries?Martin Wall explores the mythology and psychology of this unyielding and insular people; their devotion to charismatic leaders they believed to be sent from God, and their stubborn determination ‘ne’er to yield’ to oppression and injustice, whether Roman, Saxon, Norman, Viking, or later, the ravages of industrialisation. This fascinating book explores Celtic Britain from before the onslaught of the Roman Empire, through rebellion and open war, to the Act of Union passed under the Tudors and on to the Victorian era.

Part personal memoir, part cultural history, West is a compendium of ‘tales’, telling the story of a unique geographical and literary landscape – the western Midlands of England. It is a magpie’s nest, a melange of anecdotes, folk legends, ghost stories and fairy tales. But more than this, it is a record of a land and its people, told over 2,000 years of history – a land that birthed both industrial and cultural revolutions.A native of the area, Martin Wall takes us on a search for lost time in the Lost Lands of the west, charting the liminal energies which have so influenced our literature – and himself. Shamelessly nostalgic, sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, these tales invite us to immerse ourselves in the past, present and future, to become ‘unstuck in time’.How were the lands ‘lost’? The author laments the decline and fall of a succession of cultures, from the Celtic principality of Pengwern and the mighty kingdom of Mercia to the end of heavy industry in the late twentieth century. With a thoughtful foreword by Robert Plant, West takes history to a new imaginative edge.

The Anglo-Saxon age was one of great change and unrest. Lasting from the departure of the Romans in approximately AD 400 until the Norman invasion in AD 1066, this era was defined by the continued spread of Christianity, the constant threat of Viking raids and the first stirrings of a nation that would become known as England.With its strange customs and unfamiliar names, the Anglo-Saxon era became mysterious and misunderstood, ironically by the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, the English people themselves. Archaeological discoveries have forced us to re-evaluate these ingenious and skilled people, and to acknowledge the debt we owe to them. Martin Wall seeks to ‘de-mystify’ the period, breaking it down into easy-to-read, bitesize chunks, and to show that the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ were by no means backward or inferior. It was a truly heroic age, whose exemplars, such as King Offa, Alfred the Great, Lady Aethelflaed or Athelstan, stand beside the giants of world history. In 100 excerpts from these turbulent, bloody and exciting centuries, a proud, complex, but ultimately doomed civilisation is revealed.

The discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard in 2009 has captured the imagination and stimulated renewed interest in the history and culture of the Anglo-Saxons. The discovery poses some interesting questions. Who owned the treasure and how did they acquire it? Was it made locally or did it originate elsewhere? Why was it buried in an obscure field in the Staffordshire countryside? To answer these questions, Martin Wall takes us on a journey into a period that still remains mysterious, into regions and countries long forgotten, such as Mercia and Northumbria.This is a story of the ‘Dark Ages’ and the people who lived in them, but darkness is in the eye of the beholder. This book challenges our notions of these times as barbaric and backward to reveal a civilization as complex, sophisticated and diverse as our own.

No major battle has taken place on British soil since the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Almost three centuries of the absence of war on the island has generated a complacency which blinds us to the horrific violence and bloodshed which raged on these isles for over 1,700 years. For many younger people, war is a seeming anachronism, a reminder of an unsophisticated, almost barbaric past. For other people, our military history recalls more glorious days, when British military skill helped to establish a vast overseas empire.Martin Wall examines our long and blood-soaked history from the Roman invasions until modern times. This is by no means just a story of honour, courage and glory, but of the terrible suffering war has caused through the centuries – and the epigenetic trauma it has bequeathed us, which continues to influence our national culture even today.