I have just returned from sailing in the Ionian Sea in Greece with my partner and wife Liz on our sailing boat ‘Monabhar’, a 34 foot sloop. The name means ‘whisper or murmur’ in Gaelic, the sound it makes when sailing without an auxiliary engine. We normally spend three months in the spring and two months in the autumn on board.

This spring we went down to Misolonghi, in the Gulf of Patras. It was here that the poet, Byron, died supporting the Greek War of Independence. I also met the translator of ‘Demanding the Impossible: A history of Anarchism’, particularly welcomed because Greece has a strong anarchist movement. This autumn we sailed north to ports on the mainland opposite Corfu with our son and two grandchildren.

By the way, Amazon attributed all my books to another Peter Marshall who is a historian at Warwick University and an expert on the Reformation. I have told them but my books are still in his name! I hope this will be rectified soon.