Dr. John T. Smith

John has been writing and researching history for over 40 years, initially as a part- time researcher of the Russian Revolution, then as an Education Historian at the University of Hull. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and seven sole-authored books, as well as four part-authored volumes. He more recently has been working on local history with the Beck Isle Museum in Pickering to produce biographies of every soldier from the town, who fought and died during the First World War. In 2021, he published a history of Methodism in Pickering (ISBN: 9781527295285 ) and a biography of the 17th Century benefactress, Lady Eliza Lumley. His latest book is a series of short stories about a medieval realm populated by very old, very toothless and very small inhabitants, who are given quests by their king and Magician Hedgebert, strangely pronounced ‘Merlin’.