David Bruce

David Bruce has two favourite historical subjects; the aviation of World War II and the time of the Anglo-Saxons.

David won an RAF Flying Scholarship at the age of seventeen and went on to fly a wide variety of aircraft, including some classic RAF trainers; the de Havilland Tiger Moth, the North American T6 (RAF Harvard), the de Havilland Chipmunk, and the Scottish Aviation Bulldog. David's flying experience (which includes a great enthusiasm for aerobatics) and his acquaintance with many WWII RAF aircrew inspired him to write novels that put accurate history and technology to the fore. Other pastimes include photography (using the venerable Pentax P67) and providing strong support to the Hampshire Writers' Society.

David Bruce writes:

"For my aviation stories, I try to create a plot with an unusual angle and weave this closely within the history of the period. This imposes a significant research obligation, and a writing discipline that allows few, if any, liberties to be taken with the technology, history, or the personalities of the day; my goal is to touch the history, but to leave it intact."

For his first novel set in the Anglo-Saxon period he has chosen the remarkable story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great and the Lady of the Mercians, who took power in Mercia when her husband died and, with her brother King Edward of Wessex, drove the Danes back across the Danelaw. Aethelflaed’s history has inspired as much angst as study, and in ‘The Turning of the Tide’ we have a highly-researched tale that may provoke much thought.

David Bruce writes:

“The Anglo-Saxons were a people who continue to fascinate; for their law and institutions, their benign treatment of women, their eager attitude to war, their enthusiastic embrace of Christianity, their near obsession with Rome, and the contrast between the earthiness of their ordinary existence and the sometime sophistication of their rulers. The invasion of the Vikings brought about many changes, many of which have had a lasting impact on Britain, and numerous novelists have succumbed to the temptation to write about these turbulent times.”